With the Car of the Year judging process in pandemic disarray for the second year running, we UK judges got the job done (to coin a phrase) and managed to assemble all seven contenders at Silverstone outside the racing circuit’s new museum (which has a very good cafe) to drive them on some of the toughest testing roads in the country.
The 61 jurors across 23 countries judge the cars on a bewildering number of criteria: general design; comfort; safety; economy; handling and general roadworthiness; performance; functionality; general environmental requirements; driver satisfaction; and price, with technical innovation and value for money also major factors.
Despite these superficially comprehensive criteria, I believe some of the best cars are unrepresented in this year’s shortlist, such as the Nissan Qashqai, the BMW i4 and iX and Mercedes-Benz EQS. Nor are there any MG models in there which, given the way the Chinese-owned company is elbowing its way into the battery electric market with some really keenly priced cars, seems a curious omission.
Indeed, two pairs of shortlisted cars, the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5, and the Cupra Born and Skoda Enyaq, are effectively the same vehicle under the skin. As we’ve often said, in a future of identically-based electric cars, designers, colour-and-trim specialists and ride-and-handling engineers are going to be the most important people in the motor industry.
There is a tendency for Coty to occasionally revert to a sort of automotive version of that awful Sixties TV show Jeux Sans Frontières, and this year I feel as though I’m running around a car park somewhere in Luxembourg dressed as a Day-glo foam-rubber croquette potato shouting “you’ve chosen the wrong one”, before being tipped into a vat of mayonnaise.
Still, you can only judge what you are given and with no season-opening Geneva motor show again this year, Frank Janssen, our jury president, will be standing without the support of the jury in a chilly basement at the Swiss Palexpo exhibition centre to give the result this Monday afternoon.
I never manage to predict the winner, but here are my thoughts on this year’s magnificent seven (in time-honoured reverse order, of course)…
We’ll reveal the winner at telegraph.co.uk/cars as soon as it’s announced.
