GENEVA: 2015 World Car of the Year awards, judges has prepared the list to a handful of 10 finalists in each of the award’s five categories.
Ten cars will do battle for the overall Car of the Year title, and awards will also be handed down for best Luxury Car, Performance Car, Green Car and Design.
Interestingly, only BMW has managed to have a car nominated in each category for this year’s awards.
Fighting for the top prize, taken out last year by the Audi A3, will be the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer, Citroen C4 Cactus, Ford Mustang, Hyundai Genesis, Jeep Renegade, Mazda2, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, MINI 5-Door, Nissan Qashqai and the Volkswagen Passat.
Contenders for World Luxury Car of the Year include the BMW i8 (oddly not included in the Performance category), and stablemate the X6 SUV, along with the Cadillac Escalade and ATS Coupe, the Kia K900/Quoris, Lexus NX and RC Coupe, Lincoln MKC, Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe and the Range Rover Autobiography Black LWB.
Last year’s Luxury winner was the S-Class limousine.
Those up for the Performance badge include Audi’s S1, S3 and TT/TTS models, Bentley’s Continental GT Speed, the BMW M3 and M4 twins, the Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, Jaguar F-Type R Coupe, Lexus RC F, and the new Mercedes-AMG GT.
In 2014, the Performance award was taken out by the Porsche 911 GT3.
Green cars to be voted on include again the BMW i8, along with the Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell, the Kia Soul EV, Volvo’s new XC90 T8 Twin Engine and the Volkswagen Golf GTE.
In the final category, Design, you’ll find the 2 Series Active Tourer, C4 Cactus, XC90 and C-Class again, along with Porsche’s new Macan SUV.
The panel’s favourite Green car in 2014 was the BMW i3, which also took out the Design award.
From the above lists, the WCOTY judges will select the top three offerings in each category. Those will be announced at next month’s Geneva Motor Show, before the overall winners are revealed at the New York Auto Show in April.
