Every year I realize more and more the stupidity of the premise of Motor Trend’s Car of the Year competition. The exhaustive testing is great and trustworthy. I accept their opinions, too. But one car out of all the new models receives recognition? It’s not directly compared with older members of its segment even though Motor Trend insists that the comparison isn’t with the cars in the test. What’s worse, Motor Trend pays no regard to reality and ends up naming the Nissan GT-R (we already knew it was the best car of the year, but we’re real people MT) or the Ford Thunderbird or Volkswagen New Beetle. Sometimes MT gets it right, with cars like the Infiniti G35 or Honda Civic.
I regret, then, that evo magazine’s COTY works on a similar premise and is somehow unforgettable and amazing. The difference? evo is rarely in touch with reality and we don’t expect them to be. Track cars, rare run-out models of French hatchbacks, insane supercars…. anything goes. Well, anything that has already pleased the evo editors. The British magazine places no emphasis on price – and we know that starting the first page of the feature. Rather, evo wants to find the car that best fulfills their motto, “The Thrill of Driving”. It doesn’t matter if that car is embarrassingly inexpensive or prohibitively expensive. Part 1 of evo’s COTY competition is in video preview below. Watch it.
