Let’s be honest, it’s difficult to know what 'Car of the Year' really is – because it could be any number of cars!
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the new Renault 5 E-Tech (above) named European Car of the Year, What Car? Car of the Year and TopGear.com Car of the Year. Renault was also chosen as the most exciting car brand by used car seller Cinch. (For Select's glowing review of the Renault 5 E-Tech, head here)
The Kia EV3 won the Electrifying.com Car of the Year, while performance mag Evo’s car of the year was, predictably, a Porsche 911 (below). My former title Auto Express named the Citroen C3 as its Car of the Year back in July last year, yet that car has only just appeared in UK showrooms. And the Best Cars of the Year Car of the Year award was given to the Renault 5 last summer, before anyone had even driven it!
For complete transparency, I’ve been complicit in this over the years, as editor-in-chief of both What Car? for ten years and editor-in-chief of Auto Express for 13 years I stood on stage handing over countless trophies to very happy car company execs. I’m now on the steering committee of the Daddy of all car awards, World Car of the Year (current holder of that title is the Kia EV9 with this year’s winner announced in New York in April – somebody’s got to do it). And for a bit of fun, I even announced the winner of the Steve Fowler Automotive Awards last summer – the winner was the excellent MG 3 Hybrid (below)!
When I announced my first ever Car of the Year as editor in 2000, I stood on stage at London's Grosvenor House to reveal the winning car as the Skoda Fabia. Back then it really helped to change the whole image of Skoda, we were headline news on the TV and radio the following morning and the awards issue of What Car? was the biggest selling magazine of the year.
We always timed the Car of the Year awards I was involved with to help car buyers in the lead up to registration plate change day – March and September are the biggest sales months of the year, so announcing winners while buyers were eager for info seemed the ideal thing to do.
But does anyone really care anymore?
Well, judging by the logos that appear on car advertising, the car companies certainly do. In fact, one anonymous PR person for a car company once told me that if we gave out an award for ‘Worst Car of the Year’ they’d probably stick it on an advert because people wouldn’t read it, they’d just be impressed that the car had won an award!
Awards sell cars, of that there’s no doubt. I know it does for me if I’m buying anything from a lawnmower to a phone case. But awards are only a snapshot in time. An award-winning car may well be the flavour of that particular moment, but something might come along that everyone thinks is better than the award winner just weeks after the trophy is handed out – the award winner may even get beaten in a test! The trophy isn’t handed back, though, and the logos will still be on the adverts, even if the winner has – in reality – slipped some way down the pecking order.
Of course, awards are big business for those handing out the gongs, too. Tables for awards functions go for thousands of pounds – and if you’re up for an award, you’re expected to be there. Then there are the licence fees paid for the use of those logos. It’s big business, although I must be honest and say that I was never put under any pressure to give an award to a company that did or would spend money with us. I must be equally honest and say that I wonder if that’s true for each company handing out awards… I’ve seen some very strange winners in my time.
So, what does a big awards win mean for lease customers choosing their next vehicle?
Some years ago, I cottoned onto the fact that most people begin their car searches – as I did and still do – by typing the word 'Best' into Google, followed by the search term that best described the car I was looking for. And so we were first with the ‘bests’ pages on our website and the web traffic followed. That’s now the game that anyone who publishes content plays and the traffic numbers have increased dramatically.
And that’s my advice to you. Remember that a car of the year could just be a car of the week. So go searching online for the best car for whatever you want to do with it or for what you want to spend, and you’ll find no end of expertise to help you find the right car at the right price.
If you're old school, you can even pick up the phone and have a chat with a Select leasing consultant, who can perhaps help you see beyond the trophies and towards a car that's the most suitable for you.
** Steve Fowler is one of the UK’s best-known automotive journalists and currently EV Editor of The Independent and a regular contributor to The Guardian. He’s the only person to have edited three of the UK’s biggest car titles – Auto Express, Autocar and What Car? – and has interviewed the biggest names in the car world from Tesla’s Elon Musk to Ford’s Jim Farley. Steve has also presented documentaries for BBC Radio Four and is used as a resident ‘car guru’ on TV and Radio. He’s a World Car of the Year juror and a judge on both Germany’s and India’s Car of the Year Awards. Read more of Steve's work at stevefowler.co.uk.
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