With the sad news of Boyd Coddington's death and Brock Yates' blog departure, it has us thinking about automotive heroes. For some a hero is a designer like Carroll Shelby (despite some recent events). For others, it's a racer like Fangio, Schumacher or Foyt (despite a temper). What about George Barris? He's the man behind the Monkeemachine and the Batmobile. Can't hate on that.

Is it cliche to be a big fan of Steve McQueen? We're in a position where we can ask which of McQueen's star cars are the coolest. He's owned some fine automobiles and... uhh... married Ali MacGraw. We put it to you, readers, who is your automotive hero?

Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.