The jury for the North American Car of the Year and North American Truck of the Year announced the six finalists that will be competing for the 2012 edition of the awards. During an Automotive Press Association event that took place last week in Detroit, the awards committee announced that the Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus and Volkswagen Passat are the three finalists for the 2012 North American Car of the Year, while the Honda CR-V, BMW X3 and Land Rover Range Rover Evoque will compete for the 2012 North American Truck of the Year awards.
Voting started earlier this month, when all the jurors sent their votes to Michelle Collins, partner at Deloitte & Touche and the finalists’ names were announced by Karl Brauer, Total Car Score’s Editor-in-Chief and also a member of the organizing committee. A second round of voting has started now and the final results will be announced during the press days at the Detroit Motor Show, on January 9 at the Michigan Stage at Cobo Hall. To make sure there’s no controversy around these awards, the committee decided not to accept any advertising from carmaker or other companies related to the car competing for the awards.
Unlike other automotive industry awards in the United States and Canada, the North American Car and Truck of the Year winners are decided by fifty journalists representing all major media streams, including television, websites, radio, magazines and newspapers. All cars competing for these awards have to be completely new or significantly changed compared to models from other production years and the organizing committee is made of six persons: Karl Brauer, Tony Swan from Car and Driver, Marc Lachapelle from MSN Autos US, Mark Phelan from The Detroit Free Press, Lindsay Brooke from Automotive Engineering International and freelancer Christopher Jensen.
Last year’s winners were the Chevrolet Volt (North American Car of the Year) and the Ford Explorer (North American Truck of the Year) and this year seventeen cars and seven trucks competed in the first round of voting. The vehicles that didn’t make the finalists list were:
Audi A6, Audi A7, Buick Verano, Chevrolet Sonic, Chrysler 300/SRT-8, Fiat 500, Ford Focus, Hyundai , ccent, Hyundai Elantra, Hyundai Veloster, Kia Rio/Rio 5, Scion iQ, Subaru Impreza, Toyota Camry, Toyota Prius V, VW Beetle, VW Passat (North American Car of the Year) BMW X3, Honda CR-V, Land Rover Range Rover Evoque, Mercedes-Benz M-Class, Mini Countryman, Nissan Quest, Saab 9-4X (North American Truck of the Year).