All 12 category winners on display Photo: Eric Novak
(Toronto, ON) The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada announced it’s 12 category winners this morning at a press conference in Toronto, ON, and with the announcement came a few surprises.
Mazda Canada was the big winner of the day, picking up all 3 awards that they were nominated in. TheMazda 3 won the Best Small Car under $21K, while it’s 5-door sibling, the Mazda 3 Sport won Best Small Car over $21K. The Mazda 6 was awarded Best Family Car Over $30K.
General Motors of Canada picked up 2 awards. The Chevrolet Corvette Stingray was awarded Best Sports/Performance Car over $50K, while the GMC Sierra was awarded Best New Pick Up Truck.
The other multiple winner was Kia Canada, as they were awarded Best SUV/CUV $35 to $60K for the Kia Sorrento and Best Family Car Under $30K for the Kia Soul.
Single awards were given to Acura Canada (Best SUV/CUV over $60K) for the MDX, Infiniti Canada (Best Luxury Car over $50K) for the Q50 Hybrid, Jeep Canada (Best SUV/CUV under $35K) for the Cherokee, Mercedes Benz Canada (Best Prestige Car over $75K) for the S Class, and Lexus Canada (Best Luxury Car under $50K) for the IS 350 RWD.
Sandra Lemaitre, National Manager - Public Relations for Mazda Canada
Rob Assimakopoulos, General Director - Marketing/Communications, General Motors of Canada
Maria Soklis, President and COO, Kia Canada
Notably absent among the winners this year was Ford Canada, who last year was the big category winner, picking up 4 awards. Ford had only been nominated in one category this year (Small Car over $21K – Fiesta ST). Also absent was Hyundai Canada who received 2 awards last year. Hyundai Canada had been nominated in the SUV/CUV category $35 to $60K for the Santa Fe XL. Porsche Canada was also a double winner last year, but was shut out and received only one nomination this year (Sports Performance car over $50K for the Cayman).
The twelve category winners now go on to compete for the top honour of being either the 2014 Canadian Car of the Year or the 2014 Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year. The overall winners will be declared on Thursday, February 13, 2014 at the beginning of media day at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto.
Judging for the awards took place in October during the annual Test Fest, which takes place in Niagara Falls, ON. The vote results are not the personal opinion of just one journalist. Rather, they are based on a combination of objective data and evaluation by 80 journalists of 174 vehicles. Each journalist drives vehicles in a category back-to-back on the same day, under the same conditions, on closed and public roads, so as to ensure consumer relevance.
Every detail, from safety features to cargo capacity, is thoroughly scrutinized and individually rated by secret ballot. over 40,000 data fields are generated by the journalists. KPMG then tabulates the information from the ballots in order to determine the winners. The vote results are kept confidential – even from AJAC – until announced publicly.
Judges are all members of AJAC and evaluation of each entry is done through a complex process. All test scores for category judging are made available to the public for comparison purposes on the AJAC website.
To learn more about the Canadian Car of the Year Award, visit www.ajac.ca.
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