Stuart Johnston is a SAGMJ jury member and shares his thoughts from this year’s competition.

A total of 28 motoring journalists, appointed SAGMJ jury members, gathered on March 4 and 5 to put the 11 finalists for the Wesbank-sponsored 2015 Car of the Year competition through their paces. We used roads in the Muldersdrift area and the Gerotek Testing facility near Hartebeespoort Dam for the stringent back-to-back testing. Here’s my take on what should be the outcome.

For the full weight of the jury decision, you’ll have to wait until March 18th, when the winner will be announced at a Gala Wesbank-hosted event. Incidentally, along with KZN-based Colin Windell, I am one of just two jury members who was on the very first Car Of The Year, also sponsored by Wesbank, in late 1985. So, happy 30th anniversary and all that!

Car of The Year Finalists for 2015

Mercedes-Benz C200 Automatic R477718

So, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class is my choice for car of the Year. Apart from enjoying a very strong styling presence and a technical and feature specification laden with hi-tech ,what does it for me regarding the C-Class is its return to an essence of Mercedes qualities. It has a delicacy, an unobtrusiveness about its efficient operation that was once (but not always these days) a Mercedes luxury-car given. It glides over road surfaces, has very brisk acceleration, a high top speed and yet it is the most-fuel efficient car in its class. And it does all this without really trying!

Toyota Corolla 1.4D Prestige R266400

The Corolla does its business in much the way the Mercedes does (albeit at a lower level), quietly and efficiently getting the job done. Quite apart from its keen pricing, it is a masterpiece of box-ticking, combining everything that the family man or company representative would want for daily running or long trips. Its super-generous boot size is a case in point, as is its fuel consumption, which will run in the 5.5 L/100 mark in normal driving. And apart from modest diesel power, around the Gerotek handling track it is actually a very wieldy machine that is pleasant to point towards the apex of a corner!

Audi A3 Sedan 1.4T SE Auto R286500

This car has a beautiful ride, and a super-solid feel. It is a pleasure to drive. It would have scored even higher, but for the fact that in the value for money stakes I think it falls down a tad. For R386500, I would have expected leather seats, and when you consider you can get its Jetta sibling with a 118kW engine and consequent performance benefits for R50000 less, it suddenly doesn’t look to be a huge bargain, despite its amazing all-round prowess and chic appearance.

BMW M4 R1115592

This was, quite simply, the best car in the competition. Then you look at its price, of over R1.1-miilion, and you realise it darned well should be! If the car had been presented in M3 sedan format, I would have scored it higher, because for me it is a huge step beyond the previous-generation V8 BMW. It has amazing ride quality for the levels of grip and supercar performance. But for my money, too specialised to be an overall contender for COTY.

Porsche Macan S Diesel R862000

This is a superb sporting SUV, but I disagreed with the choice of model – I felt the petrol V6 version, at just a smidgen more money, and with an extra 70 kW would have made this car a much more wow proposition in the COTY line-up. The problem for the Macan is that, rather unexpectedly, it’s not the no-brainer bargain that its bigger Cayenne once was. Super car, but for similar money you can also get a diesel-engined Audi SQ5 with the 230 kW performance this type of chassis deserves.

Subaru WRX Premium Manual R473700

We are getting to the level where it pains me to anoint so few points to a car as good as the WRX. But as the COTY rules allow us just 50 points to be spread over all 11 finalists, a way had to be found to allocate more points to my top contenders.

This car is exciting, has wonderful sporting road-holding and it has had a reasonable (but not exceptional) upgrade to the interior. In a way it is Number One in a field of One, as no other car on the market is really specced this way, prioritising engineering excellence above anything else. Pity its hefty fuel consumption ,in the general-running area of around 11 litres/100 km, lets it down.

Renault Duster 1.5 dCI 4WD R267900

It pained me, again, to award just three points to a car that was the surprise of the competition, thanks to its no-nonsense prowess off road, nimbleness on the skid pan, and its willing diesel engine. Its over-shiny silicone-spray-like finish to the dash doesn’t do it any favours, but its price of R267900 makes it the second cheapest car here, and it offers loads of practicality to go with its very real rough-dirt acumen. I enjoyed its honesty.

Honda Accord 3.5 V6 Exclusive R576300

Honourable Mention Department One, for a car that is in many ways very good, but doesn’t embody the criterion of excellence in as many areas as possible that the COTY competition is based upon. It has a good ride, lusty performance, a clean and classy cabin plus loads of space. It’s a worthy Merc-BMW-Audi alternative, but it needs to be priced a whole lot cheaper to win more adherents.

Lexus ES 250 EX R471800

Honourable Mention Department Two, the Lexus 250 is well put together, is crammed with no-cost features you normally pay a bomb for when choosing other cars in this segment. And yet it inspires zero emotion in me, which is a problem I have had with Lexus cars for yonks, apart from its great-grand daddy, the iS200 which was such a strong COTY contender a decade and half ago. This one did everything well, apart from its rather ill-advised gear ratios on the auto box. But for similar money you can have a Merc C-Class.

Citroen C4 Picasso e-Hdi 115 R345900

Honourable Mention Department Three, the Citroen C4 Picasso was the most odd-ball choice in the competition. It is described as having well-being as its foremost design brief, and I guess the very airy cabin promotes this feeling pretty well. It has plenty of quirky features and two display screens for touch operation and information. Unfortunately, it is pretty pedestrian in its 85 kW guise, which would be okay if it was priced in the R280000 price bracket, for this kind of moms-run-around-with-style car. But at R345900 (without the extras fitted to the test vehicles which severely hiked the price) I’m afraid, charming as it is, it was never going to win.

Nissan Qashqai 1.6 DCI Acenta Auto R384400

I wish that Nissan had pushed for the six-speed Qashqai to be entered, because I feel that the CVT gearbox soured our feelings towards this very good crossover vehicle. It’s not a bad example of a CVT, but there are better around (the Subaru one in the Forester for instance) and Nissan’s six-speeder is a big improvement over the old one. In fact the whole Qashqai has been up-graded, which makes it a worthy COTY finalist! But unfortunately, it didn’t excel for me in any particular area. Not in this exalted company!