Canadian Car of the Year category finalists announced

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.

The category finalists, and ultimately the winners, are determined by the secret ballots of 84 AJAC member journalists from all across Canada, following five days of intense evaluation as part of AJAC's annual TestFest, held recently at Niagara Parks Commission facilities in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

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