2016 Canadian Car of the Year Awards

Canadian Auto Experts are Gearing Up for an Intensive Fall Testing Program "TestFest" 2015

The Canadian Car of the Year is a vehicle that truly stands out, in its market segment, in the industry, and in the collective evaluation of Canada's most trusted automotive experts.

TORONTO, Oct. 20, 2015 /CNW/ - Later this month, the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) will commence a testing program to determine the winner of the Canadian Car of the Year, Canadian Truck or Utility Vehicle of the Year, Canadian Green Car of the Year, and Canadian Green Truck or Utility Vehicle of the year.

But what, exactly, makes a vehicle a winner? Officials with the AJAC Canadian Car of the Year (CCOTY) program encourage the public to ask that exact question when considering the results of their awards program, or any other.

Where some automotive awards programs simply declare the a winner based on the preferences of a few individuals, the CCOTY program capitalizes on the experience of some 80 respected member journalists, who drive all entries back to back on a series of drive routes including public roads, a performance course, a handling course, and an off-road course—precisely mimicking a range of conditions that a consumer would likely experience in daily life. Dozens of factors relating to each vehicle are scored, with everything from noise levels and cargo space to fuel economy and acceleration figures considered, weighted, and applied to that vehicle's points' score. Vehicles are categorized based on price and type, and all entries in a given category are driven back to back, on the same day, in the same conditions.

"The benefits are two-fold" says CCOTY Co-Chair Justin Pritchard. "First, back-to-back testing brings out even subtle differences between competitors, which are reflected in the scoring results. And second, all of our results are quantified: when a vehicle wins or loses in the program, the public can see, precisely, why—since all of our testing and voting data is published online at www.ajac.ca. This isn't a popularity contest: when we declare a winner, we've got hundreds of thousands of data points, collected during thousands of man-hours of controlled test-drives, to back it up".

Both subjective and objective scores are combined and weighted for importance in determining which vehicle in each category has the greatest overall scores in relation to the vehicles it competes against. This data driven, unbiased program ensures an accurate representation of a winner.

Voting and testing results will be collected during the last week of October, with category winners announced later in November.  Overall finalists are presented at the Toronto auto show and the Vancouver auto show in 2016.

SOURCE Automobile Journalists Association of Canada

about the AJAC CCOTY Awards, please contact Justin Pritchard Co-Chair ([email protected]), Gary Grant Co-Chair ([email protected]), Brian Early Director ([email protected]), Haney Louka Director ([email protected]), David Taylor Director ([email protected]) or Charles Jolicoeur Director ([email protected]).