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World Car of the Year finalists announced

Thursday, 7 February 2019

The ten finalists for the World Car of the Year have officially been announced. And it actually contains a few surprises.

The finalists are selected by jury of 86 international automotive journalists by secret ballot based on their own evaluation of the eligible vehicles. You can see a list of all eligible vehicles by clicking here.

The ten World Car of the Year finalists are, in alphabetical order:

We absolutely love the look of the new Suzuki Jimny, but its 3 star safety rating makes it a strange choice as a World car of the Year finalist.
We absolutely love the look of the new Suzuki Jimny, but its 3 star safety rating makes it a strange choice as a World car of the Year finalist.

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Most of the surprises come in the form of vehicles that missed top ten selection, including the Subaru Forester, Toyota Corolla and Audi A1, but perhaps the biggest surprise is the inclusion of the Suzuki Jimny.

While we here at Stuff Motoring are unabashed fans of the current Jimny, and I even picked the new one as one of the cars I am most looking forward to driving this year, but the fact that it only scored a fairly dismal thee stars in EuroNCAP testing makes it a strange choice as a finalist in the global award. Surely the 'best' should also be as safe as possible by current standards, shouldn't it?

As well as the ten finalists, the top five cars in each of the WCOTY categories were also released.

World Urban Car finalists:

World Luxury Car finalists:

World Performance Car finalists:

World Green Car finalists:

World Car Design of the Year finalists:

The top three World Car of the Year finalists will be announced in March at the Geneva Motor Show, along with the 2019 World Car Person of the Year, while the winner will be revealed at the New York International Auto Show on Wednesday, April 17th, 2019.