This year’s field
Audi e-tron
Ingolstadt’s all-new, all-electric SUV stunner has a crack with two variants, a 50 quattro and 55 quattro. One has 230kW/540Nm and the other 300kW/664Nm, but that looks a little meeker up against kerb weights of 2445kg and 2565kg. With as-tested prices of $140,450 and $161,900, the odds seem somewhat stacked against Audi’s high-tech battery-powered bruisers, but then again it was its rival, the exceptional Mercedes-Benz EQC, that took home the silverware only last year.
BMW 4 Series
It has a controversial new schnozz, but can a cracking chassis and powertrain bring it home for Munich’s polished coupe? This year we have the 420i with a 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder, its 135kW and 300Nm turning the rear treads via an eight-speed automatic. But it’s the bigger daddy, almost baby M4, M440i xDrive that has more of our attention. Its silky smooth B58 3.0-litre turbo inline six sends 275kW and 500Nm to all four wheels and is good for 0-100km/h in a conservatively claimed 4.5sec.
Ford Escape
The Blue Oval is trying to shift some eggs out of the Mustang and Ranger baskets in Australia, and part of that process is this car and the model below it, the Puma. If acceleration is your thing, the Escape is not short on snot with its 2.0-litre turbo four producing 183kW and 387Nm, and shifting ‘just’ 1650-odd kilograms of mid-size SUV. The Escape fronts COTY with three variants: the base FWD, the ST-Line FWD and the bulging-with-standard-kit top-spec Vignale AWD.
Ford Puma
With a facial expression like you just caught it scurrying around your house on the hunt for some cheese, Ford’s tiddlywink Puma small SUV has in fact won the praise of many Pommie reviewers as it goes up against its first Car of the Year. With a tonne of clever interior design, we’ve got two variants, both with the turbo 1.0-litre triple producing 92kW and 170Nm; one with a more sporting suspension tune than the other.
Genesis GV80
It’s big, it kinda looks like a Bentley Bentayga, and it’s very new. There’s no doubting the luxo credentials of the new Genesis GV80 large SUV, but can its beautifully appointed high-tech cabin overcome an ask somewhat higher than we would have guessed? Three variants are represented at COTY; the rear-drive 2.5T turbo-petrol four, the turbo-diesel 3.0-litre inline six, and the 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 279kW 3.5T AWD Luxury. Ranging from $90,600 to $120,600 as tested.
Kia Sorento
Kia’s updated all-round SUV has won high praise in early reviews for its thoughtful interior and polished dynamics. How might that translate against the COTY criteria? With the hybrids not quite here in time, the Sorento tackles our blue riband event with two variants: the $50,290, 148kW/440Nm S Diesel AWD; and the $62,285 GT-Line with its 3.5-litre slightly old-school atmo V6 driving the front wheels.
Land Rover Defender
The reborn, funky new Defender has to live up to the expectations of a veritable army of diehard fans, but what about our COTY criteria? Just one variant represents this boulder-bashing off-roading legend: the 110 P400 SE costing $116,116 (as tested) and with a 3.0-litre inline turbo-petrol six. It produces a hearty 294kW and 550Nm, but here’s hoping the lack of a diesel variant on test won’t hobble its COTY chances. Land Rover said all the diesels are sold out!
Mazda CX-30
Not quite a CX-3, not quite a CX-5, the mid-size SUV CX-30 is a different model that slots in between. As we have come to expect from Mazda, it has an interior that looks like it was pinched from a much more expensive car, as well as dynamics that make you wanna go for a drive. With the 2.0-litre FWD, 2.5-litre FWD and the new high-tech supercharged hybrid X20 Astina represented, Mazda is hoping the CX-30 will bring home its ninth COTY gong.
Mercedes-Benz GLB
The defending champion brand is back with its boxycool GLB small SUV, one of the hottest new segments in the market. With the arguably weakest 200 variant unavailable for testing, Merc plays its strongest suit with the 250 and AMG A35. Both are powered by 2.0-litre turbo fours, the former with 165kW and the latter a very healthy 225kW. Priced at $80,560 and $96,285 respectively (as tested), both send their forced-fed grunt to all four wheels.
Toyota Yaris
The new Yaris delivers a segment-pioneering powertrain and advanced safety features, and puts its front foot very much forward at Wheels COTY 2021. Variant-wise we have the Ascent Sport CVT, the smart ZR Hybrid and unquestionably one of the most exciting and hotly anticipated cars of 2020, the motorsport-inspired, utterly driver-focussed all-wheel-drive GR. But the big question remains: can the great little Yaris overcome a pricing strategy from Toyota that seems to shift prospective buyers into other, larger models?
THE COTY CRITERIA
Wheels Car of the Year isn’t some big mixed-bag comparison test. The cars are measured against six criteria. To summarise, they are: Function – how well does the car serves its intended purpose? Technology – does the car innovate and bring something new to the game? Efficiency – does it do more with less and move the game on in this regard? Safety – does it have every safety feature of its rivals, and more? Or less? Does the customer have to option any safety equipment? And finally, is it good value for money? We’ll publish the criteria in full next issue, but that’s the nutshell version.
COTY TRIVIA: THE YEAR OF NO WINNER
There have been three instances no winner of a Wheels Car of the Year has been chosen – but the most (in)famous of them all was the March 1980 running which featured on its cover a literal lemon on wheels with the line “NO Car of the Year”. None of the cars were good enough.
“Ford assumed the beautiful new XD Falcon would romp home in COTY,” wrote Peter Robinson. “But this ignored the reality of the XD being little more than a reskin of the XC: still with leaf rear springs, manual steering with almost 5.5 turns lock-to-lock, and mediocre ride and handling.”
“Nobody took the perceived slight more personally than Edsel Ford II, then deputy managing director of Ford’s Australian outpost and head of sales and marketing. And the son of Henry the Deuce, Ford’s chairman.
“Ford’s brilliant response, a full-page advertisement of 31 lemons, each carrying the name of a car that didn’t win COTY, appeared just once, in Wheels’ June 1980 edition, with this message: “There are times when being a lemon is not a bitter experience at all.” As Wheels editor, I sent Edsel a framed copy of our cover and the advertisement, and for years it hung on the inside door of a toilet in his home.”
Will next issue’s cover be a lemon with four wheels photoshopped to it? Given our stringent qualification process, and the quality of the field, we’d predict that as remote in the extreme...
AND THE WINNER IS
With the testing having taken place early December, only a handful of people know the winner before it’s revealed, which will take place on March 1 (when next issue goes on sale; and when subscribers receive their slightly delayed issue) via a live video on our Facebook. Be there or be... out of the loop.
‘The COTY field is measured against six criteria, best representing overall excellence’