The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada, or AJAC, has announced the best car of the year in nine categories. Professional service company KPMG tabulated the results for AJAC.
In October this year, AJAC members started conducting their annual assessment of all new cars that are eligible to be included in the list of each category.
The results were tabulated after considering the votes from 71 best-known motor journalists in Canada, who gathered in Clarington, Ontario for attending a test drive evaluation over a period of four days also known as the "TestFest."
Gary Grant, co-chair of the Canadian Car of the Year committee, says that TestFest is actually the most severe and intensive evaluation for new vehicles on the Earth. Currently, no other group uses such stringent methods of testing for determining the award winners.
The 71 journalists do not give their personal opinion about a car but they also drive the cars in the same driving conditions to ensure that they are comparing the drive experience fairly. All the cars go through rigorous testing, which also includes driving on real world roads.
The entire testing process included over 1,900 test drives, which produced more than 110,000 data points. All the data accumulated by the testing is also shared onIine, which allows buyers to compare the winner with other cars in the category.
KPMG tabulated the finalists at the TestFest in each of the nine categories and now the winners have been announced as below:
Small Car - Honda Civic
Family Car - Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen 1.8TSI
Sports/Performance under $50,000 - Volkswagen Golf R
Sports/Performance over $50,000 - Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Class (C 63 S)
Prestige/Performance - Mercedes Benz AMG GT (S Coupe)
Pickup - Chevrolet Silverado
SUV/CUV under $35,000 - Mazda CX-3
SUV/CUV $35000 to $60,000 - Kia Sorento
SUV/CUV over $60,000 - Volvo XC90
All the winners will now compete for the Canadian Car of the Year and Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year, which will be revealed in Toronto at the Canadian International Auto Show in February 2016.