It looks like pixel art to me. While some of the decisions are decisions maybe I wouldn't have made they do look like someone made them consciously.
Also, Kyusha, why did you decide to make it quite large? I think if you enjoyed the process of working on something so large more power to you.
- It's still pixel art... why do people keep saying these bigger pieces aren't pixel art? That's an opinion. It may look like it was made with some vectoring tools, but look closely, all the anti-alias and smoothing was hand made. -
Even the headlight gradient seems very handmade to me. I don't question at all the handmade-ness of this piece. No automation process would AA so selectively or ditherAA like the artist would have
I agree with JustinGameDesign, The scale makes it not pixel art, as things aren't very precise. It even looks like it could have been drawn in photoshop or something like that, and then compressed to give it a pixel-like look. Sorry, It just doesn't look like it's precise enough to be pixelart.
What's going on with the AA is this: some areas (black line on light grey) have enough intermediate colors for regular AA. Some areas (all those that JustinGameDesign circled) are only one shade apart, which means you don't have any AA colors; and there you use "dither AA". It's not a super common technique and it comes with a lot of obvious caveats, but sometimes if the contrast is low enough or your subject is supposed to be rough (e.g. this machete) you can get away with it.
I don't like this piece, think it wastes a lot of space and is kind of sloppy with AA, but it certainly looks handmade to me. The linewidths on more complex shapes (chairs) vary a lot, the sharpness of AA is quite inconsistent, and almost nobody can make a good round circle (these headlights are rather octagonal).
I don't think this should be rejected as "not pixel art". However, I do think that the artist should ask themselves why they aren't using vectors for this.
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As for a general comment on using shortcuts: it's the endresult that matters. An example would be this woman. I took a photo, scaled and collorreduced, then did a few cycles of cleanup&mirroring, and then used the spraycan and pencil scribbles for the hair. The hair is messy and unfinished, yes, but the face is unmistakably handcrafted.
They're not cheats. They're tools to turn 2 hours of work into one hour.
Do you have a WIP by any chance, Kyusha? I'm on the fence as well for this one (leaning on ''no'' more than ''yes'' I'll admit). 
- I agree. It could of been smaller, since there isn't much details on here anyways. With the cure thing, I can't say anything since I can't really say anything, but I also think this deserves to be in the gallery. It wouldn't be fair to push it aside, and let others get in. -
That is entirely different and is one of those rare things that is allowed when the original art is one's own and the reduction is a process or step to pixel from as a base ref.
That of course has nothing to do with what's going on here. I'm still bothered by the gradient on the headlights and just can't seem to understand the obvious pixelart parts (most of it) and certain little bits of AA which don't seem to make sense bacuse some AA lines have 6 colors which if manually pixelled (possible) do not then justify other bits where the AA does not follow what the same person would most likely do. This is mostly on outside edges to the white BG. Some pixels throw you for a loop and this is surely one of those :/
It may be of no real consequence to this type of issue. It is just cure recognized he took shortcuts, and then says to deal with it. It just implied to me that as a very important artist to the site he may be able to get away with more. Which I don't necessarily disagree with. But I'm one very minor voice that would agree to let this piece above in the gallery!
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/78167.htm
Which example by cure do you mean?
We don't play favorites so I don't like that being said at all. We strive never to fall in that pit for anyone under any circumstance 
I agree that it's pixel art. It's a bit big and vectory..The colors are pretty boring, the pixels are still tight.
I know that this could turn into another debate on method vs final product, but I know that many artists have had pieces accepted into the gallery using unpure methods, such as Cure himself, and his work getting in probably mostly because he is Cure.
Then again, this could be made with very few if any shortcuts
Oh yeah, the whitish arc is there because I darkened the headlight, but forgot to reAA that area.
- I actually don't entirely agree with Justin on this... It is still pixel art. Just a different approach to dithering. It's huge, and has a little less pixel management, but it still meets it's expectations. I actually did the same dithering on an older/removed piece, and it wasn't called npa, but it was not liked because of the dithering... The examples you showed don't really provide any reasons why this coudn't qualify as pixel art. When I look at it I see it as pixel art, just at a bigger size, but looks similar to a vector, but not because of any cheating. -
That was me trying to dither, and it was intentional. And where is the dark grey AAed to white incorrectly?
Look inside the headlights, for example, where the black lines are AAed to white at the bottom, even though the inside is dark gray, creating a residual white-ish arc between black and dark gray.
There are also a ton of odd, out of place jaggies that suggest a missing or compressed color or a misused tool or technique. Next to the AA lines they really stand out.
It looks reasonably hand controlled to me (zoomed in a lot) cept the outside edges where its AAd to the white BG and the possible gradient on the lights detail that's shown on the preview file.
On the BG with it being tight on the car itself its just an ugly presentation. Some space around the car should help.
Use of tools? I only used the pencil tool and copy/paste to mirror the two sides. I understand lack of pixel precision though, but at least it was good AA practice.
Mostly because of the lack of pixel-precision and the use of tools. I would tell you to read the pixel art tutorial, but the images are down right now.
Why not? I limited it to 18 colors and drew it pixel by pixel.
yeah, I see pixels. Look at the midtones