The top three car, SUV, and pickup finalists in 12 categories were announced today by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada, better known as AJAC.
The winners of each category will be declared the "Best New" vehicle of its type at a press conference to be held in Toronto on December 3.
Those category winners will then become eligible for the overall Canadian Car of the Year and Canadian Utility Vehicle/Truck of the Year awards. The overall winners will be announced at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto in February, 2014.
Those ballots, comprising subjective evaluations of up to 17 different vehicle attributes, were combined with ratings for seven separate objective data fields, including acceleration and braking figures generated on site, to arrive at an overall score that also considered price.
Each journalist drove all the vehicles in a category back-to-back on the same day, under the same conditions, on closed and public roads, to ensure consumer relevance.
More than 40,000 individual data points were processed to arrive at the final results, which are criteria driven and based on Canadian expertise and conditions.
Those results, as they have been for more than 20 years, were tabulated by the international accounting firm KPMG and are kept confidential, even from AJAC, until they are revealed at the respective press conferences.
The top three finalists in each of the 12 categories, chosen from 58 initial entries, are:
Small Car (under $21k)
Mazda3
Nissan Versa Note
Toyota Corolla 1.8
Small Car (over $21k)
Ford Fiesta ST
Kia Forte Sedan
Mazda3 Sport
Family Car (under $30k)
Fiat 500L
Kia Rondo
Kia Soul
Family Car (over $30k)
Chevrolet Impala LTZ
Honda Accord Hybrid
Mazda6
Luxury Car (under $50k)
Kia Cadenza
Lexus IS 350 RWD
Mercedes-Benz CLA 250
Luxury Car (over $50k)
Acura RLX
Cadillac CTS
Infiniti Q50 Hybrid
Sports/Performance (over $50k)
BMW 4 Series Coupe
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray
Porsche Cayman
Prestige Car (over $75k)
Cadillac XTS
Jaguar XJ XJR
Mercedes-Benz S Class
SUV/CUV (under $35k)
Jeep Cherokee
Subaru Forester XT Touring
Toyota RAV4 AWD Limited
SUV/CUV ($35k to $60k)
Hyundai Santa Fe XL
Kia Sorento
Mercedes-Benz GLK 250 BlueTEC 4MATIC
SUV/CUV (over $60k)
Acura MDX
BMW X5
Mercedes-Benz GL 350 BlueTEC 4MATIC
Pickup
Chevrolet Silverado
GMC Sierra
Ram 1500