Warren Mendes has been announced the winner of the Ford Ultimate Test Drive.. Warren secured 28.2 per cent of the vote and topped the leaderboard for most of the six-week duration the competition ran to take out the win.
For his well-earned efforts – and, it turns out, those of his family and friends – Warren drives away in the Focus Titanium TDCi he’s spent the last six weeks putting through a rigorous series of challenges.
For Warren, the win is a case of having his cake and eating it too. He’s been without a car for some time, having sold the one he had to save the deposit on an apartment. Now he has the deposit and the car.
So, how’s it feel, Warren?
“Well it’ll be nice to have a weekend to enjoy the car properly. I haven’t really had one for the last six weeks. Every Saturday’s been given to working up ideas and shooting, then every Sunday’s gone into editing. That was fun, but it’ll be nice to, you know, chill.”
He suspects, too, that his army of supporters will be grateful for a bit of weekday leisure time as well. For Warren’s win was nothing if not a family affair. Brother Ryan was with him all the way in the role of cameraman and director of photography. During the week a phalanx of parents, uncles, aunts, cousins twice removed, friends and workmates sprang into action garnering votes.
“I was probably sending out 40 emails a day, and each of them was doing the same at least,” he told motoring.com.au. “I suspect a fair few corporate email system administrators changed their spam rules to include any mention of Warren Mendes.”
But it paid off from the get-go.
“Warren headed up the leaderboard by a fair margin for much of the competition. Nevertheless, with the vote closing last thing Friday he spent weekend biting his nails over the prospect of a home-straight shock, as can happen in events that work on public voting.
“It’s never over till it’s over. It’s a pretty tactical thing. Whenever I went in to check over the leaderboard, I’d look at something one of the others had done and go ‘damn, why didn’t I think of that?’ Some of the entries were pretty creative.”
The army was there to worry with him, too. “Mum and Dad were up at all hours monitoring the board and calling me up every time someone else gained a point or I lost ground.”
He was up first thing Monday morning to wait for the call, and was getting worried when it hadn’t come by late morning. At lunchtime, it came, confirming he had it in the bag.
“Big relief. All they have to do, they said, was get the rego changed over from Victoria to NSW.”
Speech! Speech!
“Look, obviously I’d like to thank Ford and Carsales for turning it on. But mostly I’m incredibly grateful to my family and friends for the concerted effort they’ve put in over the last few weeks. Especially Ryan. I’ll buy him a keyring or something to thank him.”
Runner-up was young Queensland mum Bianca Sparreboom with 17.4 per cent, with Sydney medical intern Andrew Leech taking 10.9 per cent.
You read more about Warren's win at the microsite.
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