CAR OF THE YEAR PREVIEW
WHEELS COTY HAS RUN CONTINUOUSLY SINCE 1963, AND WE WERE HELLBENT ON MAKING SURE COVID-19 WOULD NOT INTERRUPT THAT RECORD RUN. THIS IS WHAT’S IN STORE FOR NEXT ISSUE
Our COVID-affected event dictated a smaller field, meaning just making the dummy grid was a big deal. Here’s what to expect in next month’s full coverage
AUSTRALIA WAS spared the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared to Europe, the UK and the USA. While incredibly fortunate that our health systems weren’t overrun and our bouts with the deadly virus were small compared to other countries, it was still a year we sat at home, got fat and, it seems, browsed and bought used cars online.
Countless events were cancelled, from the Australian Grand Prix to the Olympics, and for a hot minute it looked as if the global pandemic that would put the brakes on Wheels’ own 56-year unbroken run of Car of the Year (COTY) gongs.
Thankfully, we’ve managed to ‘save’ it.
Early in 2020, when COVID-19 was just this thing going on in some city in China we’d never heard of, COTY was slated for Ford’s You Yangs proving ground west of Melbourne late in the year. But as the virus reached Aussie shores and lockdowns ensued, we had no choice but to cancel it altogether.
Along the way, Wheels got new owners and the message was simple: make it happen, no matter what.
The race was on. With locked-down Victoria seemingly off the table, at one point the mostly Victorian-based Wheels team was looking to quarantine for 14 days in Queensland and hold COTY at Mount Cotton. Then another option: try to negotiate a quarantine ‘bubble’ at the Sutton Road driver training complex in the ACT. Then Sydney Motorsport Park was also on the table at one stage, and The Bend in South Australia also mooted.
But as the number of new infections in Victoria steadily declined, the decision was made to head to a former COTY testing venue, the Australian Automotive Resource Centre (AARC) 125km south-west of Melbourne past Geelong. Way later in the year than COTY testing is normally undertaken (hence why it’s not in this February issue, as per usual) and with just a month or two to beg car manufacturers to provide the cars we wanted, we managed to pull it all together, and this is what you’re in store for next issue.
THIS YEAR’S VENUE
The AARC is the home of Wheels Car of the Year 2021. Not far from the icy waters of Bass Strait, the AARC is a 1000-acre car tester’s paradise – and the regular haunt of engineers from Toyota, Bosch, the Australian military, and many other clients. Owned by transport magnate Lindsay Fox the AARC features a dizzying array of dirt tracks, bitumen circuits, rough roads and a skidpan bigger than the one they have in heaven.
HOW WE CHOSE THE CONTENDERS
To be eligible, a car must have gone on sale in the 12 months since the last Car of the Year event, and meet our newness criteria.
After that initial filter, 52 models were shortlisted for technical eligibility to Car of the Year 2021. This year, though, given the time constraints in which to organise the event, we elected to distil the field to just 10 new models.
Our judging panel dissected the list of 52 and, based on our collective road-test knowledge, honed it down to the field that appears over the page. (You’ll note that no dualcab utes feature, as none of them were deemed sufficiently strong against the criteria.) We maintain that, even in a year as disrupted as 2020, these were the 10 best cars that went on sale in Australia last year.