Welcome to Top Cars 2021
Monday, 3 January 2022
It may now be 2022, but here at Stuff Motoring we still have one bit of 2021 still to get out of the way, and that is our annual (but delayed) Top Car awards.
2021 was a strange and broken year for cars, with numerous disruptions due to Covid-19 lockdowns and the ongoing semiconductor shortage, so we made the choice to push the decision back until now, to allow us to drive as many eligible cars as possible for our Top Cars decision.
And so here we are: today we start rolling out our category winners, building up to the reveal of our overall winner later this week.
We have also taken the delay to give Top Cars a bit of a shakeup, drastically cutting back on the number of categories and while we will still have the overall Top Car winner, this year our categories are based on a more “why someone might be buying this car” approach.
READ MORE:
*The little big winner: the Stuff Top Car for 2020 is the Toyota Yaris
*The big winner: Toyota RAV4 is our Top Car of 2019
*Supreme winner: Volkswagen Polo is our Top Car of 2018
*Skoda Kodiaq is our Top Car of 2017
This contracted version is also a response to the difficulties of 2021, and we will look and learn from this new arrangement, so please let us know what you would like to see happen in future Top Cars awards.
Do you like the new approach to things, or do you think the old categories were more useful? What categories would you like to see? And what would you like to see gone? We want your input to help shape the future of Stuff’s Top Cars. But for now, here are this year’s categories and the order we will be revealing them this week:
Top Car for families
Room, ease of use, sensible practicalities, value for money – a particular segment of vehicle doesn’t have a monopoly on these qualities, so we will be picking this one on how well a particular vehicle deals with every day family duties.
Top Car for commuters
No particular segment of vehicle ticks all the boxes for the commuter, but does the ride height of an SUV make it better? Or the nimble ease of a small city car? How about the zero emission silence of an EV? Or the high-tech semi-autonomous capabilities of a high-end luxury car?
Top Car for spoiling yourself
This is the category for a new car purchase based on more than just the need for transport. It could be a high-end sports sedan, a supercar or a luxury limousine. Or maybe even something that combines several of those things, as long as it is quite special and makes you feel good.
Top Car for the environment
This takes into account a wider range of considerations than simply “an EV is good for the planet”. Again, everything is eligible, but we really don’t see a V8 taking this one…
Top Car for work
Okay, so a traditional “car” is unlikely to win this particular category, but for uniformity we’ll just call it that – this one is for vans, utes and anything else that can perform serious working duties.
Top Car for fun
This is pure bang-for-your-buck on the fun scale! But this doesn’t necessarily mean ferocious straight line speed or razor sharp handling – we also include off-road fun in this category – the winner could be a supercar, hot hatch or even a 4x4 SUV or ute. As long as it is massively fun and engaging.
Top Car for a budget
This one is pretty self-explanatory – which vehicle offers you the best experience for the least money.
Top Car brand
Which car brand do we consider stood out above all others in this last year? Whether it be by shaking up the industry, introducing a bunch of impressive new models, or just having a banger of a year in general.
Top Car
The overall winner. Any car we drove and wrote about in 2021 is eligible, but only one will rise to the top.