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BMW iX3 named ‘Car of the Year 2026’

By Neil Goodwin

Editor

Neil Goodwin is an in-house content writer at Select covering all things automotive. A former national newspaper journalist and PR consultant, he loves his motorcycles as much as he loves his cars....

Published 01 December, 2025, 13:53 GMT

  • BMW iX3 wins ‘Car of the Year 2026’ award
  • Prize from TopGear.com
  • ‘Drives like a BMW ought to’
  • Lease the BMW iX3 now with Select Car Leasing

The all-new BMW iX3 has scooped the main ‘Car of the Year 2026’ prize at the annual TopGear.com Awards.

While the iX3 has been around since 2021, the latest version of this electric SUV has been re-engineered from the ground up.

More importantly, it’s the first BMW to wear the firm’s sleek new ‘Neue Klasse’ design language, which is most evident in the iX3’s vertically-arranged kidney grille which pays homage to BMW design from the 1960s.

The judges at TopGear.com said of the iX3: “The furniture is beautifully tranquil. It drives like a BMW ought to. Not like a bulky EV crossover, or soulless digital first zombiemobile. What matters to BMW matters to the rest of us because its cars have always been at the tip of mainstream excellence. Just as well the iX3 absolutely, as the kids say, smashes it, and snaffles the biggest prize of them all.”

David George, CEO, BMW Group UK and Ireland said: “The launch of the new BMW iX3 represents more than just the debut of an exceptional new model – it signals the start of an exciting and transformative chapter for our brand.”

An astonishing electric range of up to 500 miles on a single charge also helps the iX3 out-muscle competition from cars like the Audi Q6 e-tron as well pricier variants of the Tesla Model Y.

Elsewhere at the TopGear.com 2026 Awards there were big wins for Renault.

Not only was the French firm named ‘Manufacturer of the Year’, the Renault 4 (above) also took home the silverware for ‘Crossover of the Year’.

The Kia PV5 Passenger was heralded ‘Family Car of the Year’.

Meanwhile the trophy for motoring ‘Moment of the Year’ went to the Yangwang U9 Extreme, which recently set a new lap record for fastest production electric sports car around the Nürburgring racetrack, with a time of 6m 59.16s seconds.

You can read all about that here.

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Wednesday, 03/12/2025

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