50 jurors trial every new vehicle for 2021
Award winners announced next month
While judging this year was a very different process from years past, the competition is fierce as the nine finalists for the 2021 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year awards have just been announced. It’s the second last step in the year-long process to determine the winners of the prestigious awards.
We’ll get straight to it, after 27 semifinalists, including 15 in the Utility category alone, these are the three class finalists for each of the trio of classes, listed in alphabetical order.
For Car of the Year, the finalists are the Genesis G80, Hyundai Elantra, and Nissan Sentra.
Truck of the Year finalists are the Ford F-150, Jeep Gladiator Mojave, and the Ram 1500 TRX.
Lastly, for Utility Vehicle of the Year, the finalists are the Ford Mustang Mach E, Genesis GV80, and the Land Rover Defender.
The process involves 50 expert jurors who use their own process and expertise to evaluate the vehicles, starting with a list of every eligible new or substantially changed vehicle for the model year.
“In this very challenging year, these nine vehicles emerged as our Finalists out of an unusually strong field of 27 Semifinalists,” said NACTOY President Gary Witzenburg. “Each one of them – especially the 15 in the ultra-competitive utility vehicle category – is excellent in nearly every way. Not to mention the automakers’ unusually difficult challenge of getting our 50 jurors from all over North America into their candidate vehicles for testing and evaluation prior to our later-than-usual voting deadline.”
Final voting for the awards takes place January 2-4, while the 2021 NACTOY award winners will be announced January 11. Traditionally this would happen at the Detroit auto show, but there is a new format this year and the details have not yet been announced.
