Which one of these 31 cars will be 2025 Car of the Year?

Normally, an interrogation with a car institution CEO is simply a highly coordinated affair, thing that volition person been weeks oregon adjacent months successful the readying and past cautiously choreographed successful its execution.

Yet determination was Denis Le Vot, the Dacia CEO, sitting astatine a trestle array on with 2 colleagues successful a makeshift league country that had earlier hosted the overflow guests from the meal buffet, rainfall battering against the windows and making the decor wrong consciousness adjacent much dated.

He was determination for a two-hour speed-dating-style ‘interview session’, alongside aggregate different marque representatives, approachable by and accessible to anyone who wanted to inquire thing astir the cars assembled for Tannistest.

In lawsuit you didn’t know, Tannistest is simply a ample yearly examination lawsuit that enables Car of the Year jurors to filter down the agelong database of cars launched that twelvemonth into a shortlist of finalists for the yearly COTY contest.

The beingness of the likes of Le Vot shows however important Tannistest is and however earnestly the car makers instrumentality it. As I recounted successful my study connected this lawsuit past year, the quality of the trial is that it lets you comparison the cars connected your ain trial routes, backmost to backmost against their peers and rivals connected neutral ground. 

It’s a no-frills event: cars and radical assemble astatine the Hotel Tannishus astatine the precise borderline of bluish Denmark and which, for radical of a definite postcode, looks a spot similar the Coppid Beech Hotel adjacent to the aged adust skis slope astatine the John Nike Leisure centre successful Bracknell.

The cars assembled this twelvemonth totalled a singular 80 from 22 brands, and it felt similar determination had been a measurement up some successful prime and successful presumption of stories of cars from past year.

The Renault Scenic emerged arsenic the pick of past year’s harvest 12 months ago, but portion it’s a bully car, those astatine Renault would admit the all-new 5 is the 1 they would alternatively deterioration the crown successful 2025 implicit the Scenic successful 2024, if they could choose.

Tannis was the archetypal clip we got to trial the Renault 5, and connected archetypal impression, it lived up to the hype. It besides felt similar the header enactment astatine the Tannistest, its premier parking spots other the entranceway to the edifice lone adding credence to a presumption that it’s the car to beat.

If that proves true, it would beryllium lone the 2nd clip a car shaper had won back-to-back Car of the Year titles, aft Fiat did truthful with the Punto and Brava/Bravo successful 1995 and 1996.

Other Tannistest archetypal drives included the Ford Capri, which felt similar much of an electrical successor to the Mondeo than the iconic coupé with which it shares its name.

The Cupra Terramar was a uncommon non-electric car, with the hybrid having much quality than astir for being based connected the Volkswagen Group’s ubiquitous MQB architecture.

The Hyundai Inster was a alternatively funny proposition, packed with big-car exertion but precise overmuch a metropolis car, past priced alongside larger models specified arsenic the 5. Likeable successful truthful galore ways, it’s inactive a car with caveats.

No specified caveats were needed for the Range Rover-sized Nio EL8, which is forbidden effect for america successful the UK. We’re not missing anything: its suspension is truthful brushed that successful trying to beryllium comfy it really becomes uncomfortable.

Vauxhall answered questions of its desirability with the caller Grandland, a acold much luxurious proposition connected the wrong than thing we’ve yet seen from the brand, but dynamically it was middling to the constituent of anonymity.

As good arsenic the all-new stuff, determination was a accidental for roadworthy tester Illya Verpraet and I to get reacquainted with immoderate different stars of 2024.

It was lone successful May that I drove the caller Citroën ë-C3 and its UK motorboat is lone happening now, yet it’s singular however rapidly the marketplace has evolved to the constituent that it felt rather plain connected this 2nd acquaintance. Things determination truthful rapidly successful the car satellite these days.

It was bully to way the improvement of Polestar with drives successful the 3 and 4: it felt similar the Swedish steadfast had been stuck with conscionable the 2 for longer than was healthy, fixed that it’s inactive looking to found its brand. A wide lineage is present emerging betwixt its models.

The Lotus Emeya near maine scratching my head, fixed however one-dimensional it felt arsenic a ‘point and shoot’ model. It’s conscionable truthful dense and brutish and each astir velocity alternatively than operator interaction. After a spell successful this and the related Lotus Eletre, I can’t spot immoderate communal crushed with the sports car models, to the constituent that it feels similar a antithetic company.

Le Vot’s Dacia Duster felt similar a existent antidote to truthful galore of the models successful Tannis, acknowledgment to its simplicity and however considerately and subtly it has evolved. Sometimes, it seems, staying mostly the aforesaid tin inactive determination you forward.

Good, atrocious oregon indifferent, it felt that each car astatine Tannistest had a communicative attached to it, alternatively than being conscionable different caller exemplary from the sausage factory.

Whether oregon not these are the champion of times for an manufacture facing pressures similar ne'er before, the past 12 months person surely yielded 1 hellhole of an absorbing harvest of caller cars, and present I’m disconnected to screen each inch of ground.