Sulu

Toronto, ON – AJAC announced this morning the Subaru Legacy won double honours as AJAC’s Canadian Car of the Year and Best New Family Car under $30,000. The Legacy earned its highly coveted award by beating out the Hyundai Genesis, Mercedes-Benz C 300 4MATIC, and Volkswagen Golf as close runner-ups.


Ford with their F-150, clinched the AJAC Canadian Utility of the Year, beating out the Porsche Macan S, Toyota Highlander and Subaru Outback for AJAC’s 2015 Truck of the Year.


Every year, automotive journalists from all over Canada gather in Niagara Falls for a five-day “TestFest” – essentially a five-day test drive of all the newest cars and trucks. All the category winners were chosen after rigorous back-to-back “real-world” testing on public roads.


CCOTY Co-Chair, Justin Pritchard says, ““Our program is absolutely testing-based. “We’ve got dozens of experienced vehicle testers driving dozens of vehicles, back-to-back, over the course of several days. This testing process generated 1,640 test drives producing approximately 106,405 data points and 500 category ballots. It’s important to note that every aspect of this testing data is shared online via our web site so that shoppers can see how a given vehicle won its category, or how it stacked up to the category winner.”


A new award from AJAC, Green Car of the Year will be announced at the Vancouver Auto Show from four finalists:


Below is the full list of Category winners and runners up:


AJAC 2015 Best New Vehicles
Best New City Car: Kia Soul EV Runner-up: smart fortwo electric drive


Best New Small Car (under $21,000): Honda Fit Runner-up: Nissan Micra SV


Best New Small Car (over $21,000): Volkswagen Golf Runners-up: Kia Forte5, MINI Cooper


Best New Family Car (under $30,000): Subaru Legacy Runners-up: Chrysler 200, Toyota Camry


Best New Family Car (over $30,000): Hyundai Sonata Runners-up: Subaru WRX, Toyota Camry Hybrid


Best New Luxury Car (under $50,000): Mercedes-Benz C-Class Runners-up: Acura TLX, Volvo V60


Best New Luxury Car (over $50,000): Hyundai Genesis Runners-up: Acura RLX Sport Hybrid, Cadillac ATS Coupe


Best New Sports/Performance (under $50,000): BMW M235i Runners-up: Ford Mustang EcoBoost, Subaru WRX STI


Best New Sports/Performance (over $50,000): Volvo V60 Polestar Runners-up: Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, Ford Mustang GT


Best New Prestige Car (over $75,000): Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupé Runners-up: Cadillac ELR, Cadillac Escalade


Best New Prestige/Performance Car (over $75,000): Porsche 911 Turbo S Runners-up: BMW M4 Coupé, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible


Best New SUV/CUV (under $35,000): Subaru Outback Runners-up: Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue


Best New SUV/CUV (between $35,000 and $60,000): Toyota Highlander Runners-up: Lincoln MKC, Mercedes-Benz GLA 250


Best New SUV/CUV (over $60,000): Porsche Macan S Runners-up: GMC Yukon XL Denali, Mercedes-Benz GLA 45 AMG


Best New Pickup: Ford F-150 Runners-up: Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon

Sulu

A category winner of any car or truck category is eligible to win overall Car of the Year and Truck of the Year.

mmarshall

Given Canada's frigid, snowy climate, and the basic competency and good design of the new Legacy, it's probably a good choice for Canadian COTY. As for the Ford F-150, my reaction is, while the Award is good in theory for the idea to mass-produce a pickup with aluminum panels, let's wait and see how those lighter-weight aluminum panels hold up with actual use of a classic work-truck. The award may be justified if those panels, with heavy and abrasive cargo being regularly loaded in and out of them and bouncing around, don't end up looking like wrinkled sheets in a couple of years.

I8ABMR

wow look at Hyundai. !!

mmarshall

For years, the Outback, by some organizations, has been classed as a truck rather than a passenger-car, but I disagree (and I owned one myself for six years). What the Outback is, realistically, is a Legacy station wagon on a raised suspension......no more, no less. It is the same general idea as most of its competitors...Toyota Venza, Honda Crosstour, Volvo XC-70 and V60 Cross-Country, and Audi All-Road, which are all simply sedan-based wagons raised up on a higher suspension and given either standard or optional AWD.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Yes because we all know the V60 is the Hellcat and GT's worst nightmare

mmarshall

I agree there is no comparison in power. But, in general, there is more to a performance car than simply having enough RWD HP and torque to shred the rear tires in a long burnout like the Dodge Hellcats. They must have found the V60 a very well-balanced package.

Sulu

The Canadian Car and Truck of the Year's claim to fame is their objectivity. In the Autumn each year, members of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) from across the country gather in one location (a small airfield near Niagara Falls for the past number of years) to test the cars and trucks (by category) back-to-back. Each model is evaluated against a checklist of 21 separate items that include acceleration, braking, vehicle dynamics, maneuverability, even off-road capability, where applicable (even "value", if I remember). Each parameter is rated using a prescribed 0 – 10 rating scale.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

I was just making light of the category

but agreed it must have been the reason

longo32

It only took one five min. road test in the new Subaru Outback for my wife and I to leave it in front of the Dealership door and walk away.
That Subaru 4 cyl CVT felt like it was dragging a parachute behind it...reminded me of the old expression, "Couldn't get out of its own way."
..
I have found trying to find . honest car-mag writers is like looking for an honest reporters on FoxNews. They all have their corporate agenda and hidden bias behind everything they do,

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i don't believe there is ANY objectivity in paid magazines now.

Sulu

You obviously do not understand the Canadian Car of the Year award (nor any other Car of the Year contests). COTY contests compare the year's NEW cars against each other to award the "best of the new", NOT the "best of the best". And the year's new cars are VOTED on by the jurors, usually automotive journalists who have (hopefully) driven each car that they are voting on.

The jurors in the Canadian COTY drive each car in a category on the same roads during the same period each year (during a span of a few days each autumn) so that they are directly comparing each car against others in its category; then they vote and rank their choices. And like anything else subject to human voting, the votes are seldom unanimous, but democracy wins, and the car with the most votes wins.

The Subaru Legacy was voted to be the best of the new-for-2015 cars entered in the the Canadian COTY. That does not mean that it is better than an older model car (any car, even the 2014-and-previous Subaru Legacy).

A few years ago, there was an attempt by some Canadian auto journalists to start a "best-of-the-best" contest, in which the truly new cars each year would be compared with the best from previous years, but that seems to have gotten lost in time (very few journalists supported it).

The winner of a COTY award is NOT meant to tell you that you WILL find that new model the best car out there. As you found out, you may not like the COTY winner at all.

BTW, there are few auto-magazines in Canada; there are newspaper inserts and automotive web-sites but few printed magazines. Perhaps because of this structure, I have found that most Canadian auto journalists are self-employed and may sell their stories to a number of different publications. They are NOT affiliated with any one publication and I have found many to be fair and unbiased.