2009

Australian car buyers are spoiled for choice, as this year’s Australia’s Best Cars (ABC) awards clearly show.

In 2000, the inaugural year, the judging panel assessed some 127 cars across 10 categories. In 2009 – the 10th annual awards – the number has peaked at 283 across 12 categories.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the commitment to ensuring the awards remain the easiest to understand and most relevant guide to new vehicle buying.

How they are judged

There’s no one ‘hero car’, but instead comprehensive and impartial scores for all types of buyer in at least 17, and up to 21, criteria.

The volume-selling variants of each model range, as nominated by the car companies, are rated from one to 10 for all these criteria by a panel of 10 judges.

Responsibility for compiling information on pricing, cost of depreciation, running and repair costs, fuel consumption, warranty, standard features, safety, security and environment is shared among the judges, who are all permanent employees of the seven state auto clubs.

Senior Road Ahead journalist Barry Green and technical researcher John Ewing are the RACQ’s representatives on the judging panel.

The subjective scoring for other criteria (comfort, space, ergonomics, build/finish quality, performance, ride, handling, braking and smoothness/quietness) is discussed and debated by the judges.

A level of importance (low: L, medium: M, high: H, critical: C) is then applied to each of these ‘raw scores’. This ‘weighting’ varies from category to category (e.g., a factor such as handling is weighted as ‘medium’ in the Small Car category but ‘critical’ in the Sports Car categories.

In early October, three finalists in each of the 12 categories are selected for exhaustive back-to-back testing at the purpose-built Australian Automotive Research Centre at Anglesea, Victoria.

After a week of examination and driving them over a range of road surfaces, category scores are reviewed and checked by the judges before being dropped into custom software, which generates the overall tallies.

Only then, and after robust debate on the subjective criteria, are the 12 winners decided.