- The Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra and Volkswagen Passat are finalists for the 2012 North American Car of the Year.
- The BMW X3, Honda CR-V and Range Rover Evoque are finalists for the 2012 North American Truck of the Year.
- The winners will be announced January 9 at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show.
DETROIT — The Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra and Volkswagen Passat are finalists for the 2012 North American Car of the Year, while the BMW X3, Honda CR-V and Range Rover Evoque are finalists for the 2012 North American Truck of the Year. The winners will be announced in January 9 at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show.
Voting was conducted by the 50 members of the North American Car and Truck of the Year (NACTOY) jury. Finalists in each category were drawn from among a list of 24 vehicles.
Last year's winners were the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the 2011 Ford Explorer.
More information, including the names of the jurors, is available here.
Inside Line says: As good as the new CR-V may be, by no stretch of the imagination would any consumer consider it a "truck."
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agentorange says:
10:14 AM, 12/19/2011
While I love the basic Focus design (the hatch, anyway), I feel it is a disaster in the US market due to that dog of an automatic. Its rough shifting is now pretty legendary. I'd take the CVT moan over a rough transmission any day.
As for the rest of the cars, they all cause me to give a non-commital shrug. I see little innovation or advances at a reasonable cost to the mass market. "Meh" applies, I think. Are we seeing a pause in the advance of cars and their technologies?
Then there is the so-called "truck" category. None of the vehicles in it are really trucks, which is no surprise as I cannot recall a manufacturer launching a new or heavily revised proper truck this year. My pause comment applies in this class, too.
I greeted the Motor Trend COTY announcement with a similar "So what".
veryhrm says:
03:33 PM, 12/18/2011
Kind of confused by the interest in the Passat. If it had a 4motion w/ stick shift (and even better 4motion + tdi + stick shift) esp in the wagon then it would be something. You can't even get the big engine w/ a stick shift so presumably there's no sporting pretension. As is, it's a slightly larger Jetta... which is fine i guess, but unless you're a VW fan it's hardly exciting. And looks wise, to me it looks totally vanilla. Kind of like a cca 2000 crown vic. That's ok too, but "car of the year"?
(and to echo others the contenders for "truck of the year" are certainly amusing as "trucks". How about "non-sedans" of the year ?)
lolxd says:
05:30 AM, 12/17/2011
My winners
Ford Focus
BMW X3 (Sorry LR, I'm not gonna give you the credit on this one. Better luck next time)
dagmar3 says:
06:36 PM, 12/16/2011
This is truly a frail field from a lean year... kind of a preview of next year's presidential election.
fandiesel says:
03:21 PM, 12/16/2011
The FORD Focus will do it !
jpbran says:
02:12 PM, 12/16/2011
BD1: All caps AND exclaimation points? Jeez-- I didn't insult your mother.
You know as well as I do a brand/model with reliability issues in their past and a reputation for being overpriced needs a while for people to see the cars on the road, in coworkers' parking spaces, etc. to start changing outdated perceptions. And any brand new model (on sale for just what, 2 months?) also needs time to build up inventory to have the specific cars people want. (especially with 3 engine choices)
And why not just address the point I made about the car selling 20x more than the previous year which was referencing your calling it a flop?
Why the hostility? :-O
morey000 says:
01:27 PM, 12/16/2011
the CR-V, Evoque and M3 are 'trucks'? huh?
pchang7 says:
12:47 PM, 12/16/2011
an old school caprice with 24" rims is more of a truck than any of those options.
kjgood says:
05:47 AM, 12/16/2011
Whether the CR-V, X-3, and Evoque are trucks or not, only one of them - the Evoque - seems to represent a significant step forward. But neither the Evoque nor the X-3 (which I guess is a candidate because BMW finally sorted out the poor ride and cramped interior of the earlier versions) represent a good value-for-money proposition. And the CR-V seems to be little more than a ho-hum restyled version of Honda's previous ho-hum version of the same vehicle. OK, Honda is still wringing a few drops more HP out of the four-banger, but it still isn't inspiring in that category either.
BTW, does anyone have a clue what the criteria are for Car/Truck of the Year anyway?
tempesting says:
10:38 PM, 12/15/2011
I'm voting the Elantra. I bought one.