REBOOTING COTY

I READ WITH GREAT interest

Andy’s September Ed Start and am heartened by his desire to reform Wheels and innovate the magazine and the online platform.

As part of this review and soul searching, may I suggest you revisit the Car of the Year award also. To my mind, you have continued to assess and award the Car of the Year looking too much on it being something that Wheels has done for more than 60 years without more than the occasional tweak and living off something created so long ago. You are leveraging off your past.

You really need to start with a clean sheet to take COTY forward into the future as a meaningful award.

Rereading the 2022 Car of the Year, I cannot see how you can compare such a diverse bunch of 21 different cars to come out with one winner.

It’s a meaningless comparison across the board against the six criteria. A Merc S450L just does not compare in any meaningful way to an i20N or to a Landcruiser 300, a BRZ or a

Kia EV6. All interesting stuff, but the outcome is somewhat meaningless to the motoring public. Unless you are in the market for a mid-sized electric SUV in 2022.

Richard Lamb, via email

As you suggest, the Wheels COTY award has served a purpose in the past, but whether it’s still a relevant and valuable award today is something to which we’ve been giving some thought. For what it’s worth, my viewpoint mirrors yours almost exactly, Richard. The judging criteria tend to funnel verdicts towards allrounder SUVs. Time for a rethink? – Ed

““I can’t recall when I’ve had so much fun day-to-day driving”