JETHRO BOVINGDON

Bovingdon responds to the accusations of bias at evo Car of the Year

‘The truth is we take ecoty very, very seriously and agonise over the decision’

IT’S ALMOST THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN: ecoty is coming. Are you excited? I hope so. For all of us connected to this magazine, the annual gathering of our absolute favourite cars remains the test to which we all look forward the most. Aside from the dread of one of your personal nominations turning out to be a bit rubbish, the pain of a solid week of petrol station sandwiches, and the frayed tempers when a group of people are thrown into a kind of motorised Big Brother experiment, it is about as perfect a week as you can imagine.

As a reader I always loved ecoty, too. It sounded like such a riot and I loved how new facets of a car’s character were unearthed as unlikely comparisons, changeable weather conditions and exposure over long days on varied roads played out. Heroes were made and it just seemed rather dreamy. Always wondered why they loved parking all the cars on beaches, though.

I was an innocent soul, it seems. Other readers didn’t appear to enjoy the in-depth analysis. Instead all they could see was bias. Prejudice. Corruption. Lies! It is an accusation that hangs around to this day, and forums, social media and other echo chambers only reinforce this view. evo is biased. Everyone is biased. Trust no-one – except the people who agree with you.

So let’s address the issue of bias at ecoty. Evidence is presented in various forms but the most consistent accusation is that ‘Porsche always wins’. Not quite true but there’s no doubt that Porsche has performed outrageously well over the years. The first three ecotys, starting in 1998, were won by the Porsche 996 Carrera, Porsche 996 GT3 and Porsche 996 Turbo respectively. More victories followed in 2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016 and finally 2019. That’s 12 outright victories from a total of 23 competitions. Surely something fishy is going on here?

I guess my counter-question would be, what possible reason is there for us to be biased? Maybe Porsche is taking us all on lavish holidays? Secreting money in offshore accounts for the judges? Throwing millions at advertising in the magazine? Well, the company has advertised in evo over the years. But then again, SEAT and latterly Cupra has occupied the back cover (one of the most expensive ad positions) for over a decade and so far they haven’t won ecoty. Audi has supported the mag with an unbroken run of advertising, too. Not exactly a stellar ecoty performer. The other thing about the ‘bias’ theories is that those who shout the loudest tend to find their trusted sources in people who own the cars that haven’t performed quite so well. These people are, of course, truly independent in that they don’t work for magazines that require advertising to survive. However, they have just sunk a load of cash into Car X and so have a vested interest in Car X being better than whatever Porsche (or BMW, or Ferrari or Mclaren, or Renault, etc) we might have declared our favourite. Seems a bit like a parent judging a primary school talent contest to me.

Maybe it’s just prejudice, then? We expect Porsche to do well and so that narrative naturally forms? This one almost irks me more than ‘you’re all corrupt’. Everyone has prejudices to a certain extent… but the beauty of all those miles and all those voices on ecoty is that they pretty quickly get weeded out. Prejudice collapses if you’re following another car on a tricky piece of road and being thrown off line, battling inconsistent dynamics or simply struggling to make the car flow.

There are many examples of the magazine directly contradicting its prejudices, too. How about the Golf R? Previous generations of VW’S fastest, four-wheel-drive Golf left us cold to the point of disinterest. Then along came the Mk7 and blew us away, finishing 4th overall and beating the Mégane 275 Trophy-r and Mclaren 650S Spider along the way. In the same test the BMW M3 – so long a star performer at ecoty – finished 9th out of 10. In 2005 the new Porsche Cayman S was roundly thumped by the Renault Clio Trophy. As recently as last year the BMW M2 CS outperformed all expectations to take the win. Me? I’d thought it was way too expensive for what seemed to be tiny changes over the M2 Competition. I loved it. Prejudices popped in one short drive. The Porsche 991 Turbo S finished 8th and dead last.

So whilst the truly, vehemently angry mob who claim we are all biased will never be satisfied, the truth is that we take ecoty very, very seriously and agonise over the decision. We are acutely aware that we’re not curing cancer here and that we’re very lucky to have such absurd ‘jobs’. But while we’re here we want ecoty to reflect the real story of the car we collectively enjoy the most on our favourite roads, at sunrise or sunset, come rain or shine and even with a week’s worth of empty sandwich wrappers in the footwell. I hope you enjoy ecoty 2021. And that your favourite does well. If it doesn’t? Well, maybe it’s just a bit rubbish.