The new Toyota Corolla is one of 24 Japanese and Korean models up for the two NACTOY awards - half the total list.
Nearly 50 new cars, trucks and crossovers will compete for one of the most closely watched awards of the year. Make that two awards as a panel of U.S. and Canadian journalists begin the long process of winnowing out the winners for the North American Car and Truck of the Year.
The two trophies will be handed next January during the opening of the 2014 Detroit Auto Show’s media preview. It will mark the 21st year for the competition which inevitably triggers a slew of press releases and advertisements as manufacturers race to promote the winners.
A total of 48 vehicles have landed on the NACTOY long list – though the final number could yet be tweaked. Japanese and Korean carmakers dominate the first-round contenders with a total of 24 models. In an unusual turnabout, the Asians have 10 of the truck and crossover nominees compared to just six Detroit models and two Europeans. The Asians also have 12 passenger car models in the running, tying the Europeans and doubling the number of domestic candidates.
Cadillac would love to repeat with the ELR plug-in hybrid after winning with the ATS compact luxury sedan in 2013.
The 50 jurors voting this year – a list which includes TheDetroitBureau.com publisher Paul A. Eisenstein – will begin the challenging job of narrowing that down in a series of steps over the coming months. That includes a back-to-back shoot-out where all the various vehicles will be driven during a three-day gathering held, appropriately, in Hell, Michigan.
Three finalists in each category will be revealed in the weeks before the winners are announced on January 13, 2014 at Detroit’s Cobo Hall conference center.
The North American Car and Truck of the Year awards have changed several times over the last two decades. For one thing, the “Truck” category wasn’t offered initially. And just last year, the NACTOY organizing committee formalized what had been another de facto change, combining utility vehicles in with trucks – even though the NACTOY name remains.
Those two changes caught two of the most significant shifts in the U.S. auto industry during the last half century: first the explosive growth of pickups, vans and sport-utility vehicles and, more recently, the equally dramatic transition from conventional, truck-based SUVs to car-based crossover-utility vehicles.
The Range Rover Sport, shown here with actor Daniel Craig. Europeans have traditionally been minor players in the truck/utility category.
Indeed, in some recent years, only a handful of classic “truck-trucks” have made even the initial NACTOY long-list. This year, the rare few include the all-new Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, Ram 2500/3500 and Toyota Tundra pickups and the Toyota 4Runner – the latter model the last body-on-frame midsize SUV left in the U.S. market.
While other, often newer, award programs have fragmented into a wide mix of categories, NACTOY has avoided that approach, though it can create some challenges for jurors – and manufacturers – when products as diverse as the little Fiat 500e battery-electric vehicle, Chevrolet Corvette, Kia Soul and Maserati Ghibli compete in the car category, and the compact Buick Encore, larger Acura MDX, Chevrolet Silverado and Nissan Rogue are considered in the truck/utility category.
The list includes a small but growing number of alternatively powered vehicles, such as the Fiat 500e, the Chevrolet Spark EV and the Honda Fit EV. One already took top honors, the Chevrolet Volt landing the prize shortly after its launch.
This past January, the Cadillac ATS was named North American Car of the Year, while the Ram 1500 took North American Truck/Utility honors.
(For more on the 2013 NACTOY winners, Click Here.)
Cadillac would clearly like to repeat this year with its new ELR plug-in hybrid, an upscale version of the more mainstream Chevy Volt. It’s one of nine General Motors products on the NACTOY long list, the most for any individual manufacturer.
NACTOY jurors have to weigh a variety of factors when coming up with the eventual two winners, notably including value for the money. Here’s the initial Long List of vehicles eligible for the 2014 awards by category:
Passenger Cars
- Acura RLX
- BMW 4 Series
- Cadillac CTS
- Cadillac ELR
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Chevrolet Impala
- Chevrolet Spark EV
- Chevy SS
- Fiat 500L
- Fiat 500E
- Honda Fit EV
- Infiniti Q50
- Jaguar F-Type
- Kia Cadenza
- Kia Forte
- Kia Soul
- Lexus IS
- Maserati Ghibli
- Mazda3
- Mazda6
- Mercedes-Benz B-Class
- Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class
- Mercedes-Benz E-Class
- Mercedes-Benz S-Class
- Mini Paceman
- Mitsubishi Mirage
- Nissan Versa Note
- Porsche Cayman/Cayman S
- Smart fortwo electric
- Toyota Corolla
Trucks/utility vehicles
- Acura MDX
- BMW X5
- Buick Encore
- Chevrolet Silverado
- Ford Transit Connect/Wagon
- GMC Sierra
- Hyundai Santa Fe (long wheelbase)
- Jeep Cherokee
- Kia Sorento
- Land Rover Range Rover Sport
- Mitsubishi Outlander
- Nissan Rogue
- Nissan NV200 Compact
- Ram 2500/3500
- Subaru Forester
- Toyota 4Runner
- Toyota Tundra
- Toyota RAV4
What’s amazing is probably even the worst of the 2013 nominated models would have walked away with the top prize as recently as 10 years ago.
Agreed, by and large. As a judge, this will be a tough year to pick.
Paul E.
I don’t know about that. There are some pretty horribly styled models these days. The tech may be better in most cases but that’s not the entire product.
If Consumer Reports can find it in its’ journalistic heart to say nice things about the Impala, surely that should establish it as a frontrunner for North American Car of the Year.