PRODUCT OF THE YEAR
When is a bucket more than just a bucket? When it’s an AVA
AVA Car Care Bucket Price: £34.90 Contact: avastore.co.uk
THE top honour in our Product of the Year Awards faces stiff competition, so it has to be an innovation that we think genuinely moves the game on by making life better and easier for motorists. In all honesty, we couldn’t have predicted that the prize would have gone to something as humble as a bucket.
But the AVA Car Care Bucket is a masterpiece of functional design, which means it can do far more than merely hold soapy water. The bucket can also be a step, a seat and a bottle holder. Even its shape has been engineered to ensure your car’s paintwork stays scratch-free.
Looking at it from above, the bucket looks like a rectangle with two opposite corners rounded off. This isn’t just a stylistic flourish, though, because it slows down the swirling motion of the water inside and means any dirt suspended in the fluid sinks to the bottom faster.
Once the grime has sunk, it is kept safely away from your wash mitt or sponge by a grit guard. This means your paintwork is protected from being scratched by dirt you’ve just picked up.
When you’ve finished with the car cleaning, the grit guard folds in half and doubles up as a bottle holder. AVA suggests this could be used to keep car-care potions safely upright while being moved, but the bucket could also come in handy on camping trips and filled with ice at festivals.
The AVA’s ability to be a step or seat could also be handy at a concert or sporting event if you want a better view or a place to rest. But it’s great for car cleaning, too. Place the lid on the bucket, stand on it and it’s the perfect height for cleaning the roof of taller SUVs and vans. Make it a seat and you won’t need to crouch when cleaning alloy wheels. The wide-bottomed shape means the step is perfectly stable and it will hold a weight of up to 100kg.
The Car Care Bucket might seem expensive, especially when other plastic pails can be picked up in a pound shop. But it feels like it’s built to last and is genuinely useful for a variety of jobs. Well done to AVA for reinventing the bucket.