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Written by Paul Horrell
I work on Top Gear, but I"m also a juror for the pan-European award, Car of the Year. The two are very different things. The Astra has just won CotY. If I was choosing the best car for us crazed Top Gear petrolheads, the Astra wouldn"t be it. Probably not even choosing among mid-sized hatchbacks.But in the CotY judging, for normal carbuyers the Astra does a terrific job. Even if from a TG point of view the Golf and Focus both drive with slightly more elan.Anyway the Focus and Golf aren"t eligible for CotY because they aren"t of the year". They"ve been around a while, and in fact the Golf won in 2013.But the Astra is worthy of the CotY award. It has GM"s paradigm-shifting OnStar system, which brings a free high-speed wi-fi hotspot into the car, plus instant contact to a real human who will programme your nav system so you don"t have to. Or indeed do you a bit of light Googling. And who knows where you are so can tell you useful stuff locally without the hopeless scrolling of using on-line systems on car screens.We jurors select a shortlist of seven cars. They were the Audi A4, BMW 7-series, Jaguar XE, Mazda MX-5, Vauxhall Astra, Skoda Superb, Volvo XC90.Then to choose a winner we each get 25 points to award among them. We aren"t allowed to give any car more than 10.Mine went like this:Astra 6; BMW, Jag, Mazda, and Volvo 4 each, Audi 3, Skoda zero.We also give our reasons. Here"s a copy of mine.The Audi is a very well-executed car. To a strong platform it adds efficient powertrains, impressive quietness, superb interior quality and a brilliant infotainment interface. But its target audience is people who don"t really enjoy cars. The styling is conservative, even timid, and most versions don"t greatly engage the driver.The 7-series is another one held back by ultra-conservative styling and muted driver feedback. But its weight-saving measures are admirable. The powertrain, chassis and driver support innovations are bold and effective. And all of this, with the exception of the carbon body elements, will soon be transposed down to cheaper, more widely sold BMWs.
Date written: 3 Mar 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 2410
I work on Top Gear, but I"m also a juror for the pan-European award, Car of the Year. The two are very different things. The Astra has just won CotY. If I was choosing the best car for us crazed Top Gear petrolheads, the Astra wouldn"t be it. Probably not even choosing among mid-sized hatchbacks.But in the CotY judging, for normal carbuyers the Astra does a terrific job. Even if from a TG point of view the Golf and Focus both drive with slightly more elan.Anyway the Focus and Golf aren"t eligible for CotY because they aren"t of the year". They"ve been around a while, and in fact the Golf won in 2013.But the Astra is worthy of the CotY award. It has GM"s paradigm-shifting OnStar system, which brings a free high-speed wi-fi hotspot into the car, plus instant contact to a real human who will programme your nav system so you don"t have to. Or indeed do you a bit of light Googling. And who knows where you are so can tell you useful stuff locally without the hopeless scrolling of using on-line systems on car screens.We jurors select a shortlist of seven cars. They were the Audi A4, BMW 7-series, Jaguar XE, Mazda MX-5, Vauxhall Astra, Skoda Superb, Volvo XC90.Then to choose a winner we each get 25 points to award among them. We aren"t allowed to give any car more than 10.Mine went like this:Astra 6; BMW, Jag, Mazda, and Volvo 4 each, Audi 3, Skoda zero.We also give our reasons. Here"s a copy of mine.The Audi is a very well-executed car. To a strong platform it adds efficient powertrains, impressive quietness, superb interior quality and a brilliant infotainment interface. But its target audience is people who don"t really enjoy cars. The styling is conservative, even timid, and most versions don"t greatly engage the driver.The 7-series is another one held back by ultra-conservative styling and muted driver feedback. But its weight-saving measures are admirable. The powertrain, chassis and driver support innovations are bold and effective. And all of this, with the exception of the carbon body elements, will soon be transposed down to cheaper, more widely sold BMWs.
Date written: 3 Mar 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 2410