It’s back. After a year away, we would like to officially announcing the 2021 AA DRIVEN NZ Car of the Year is on for 2021. A partnership between the AA motoring body and DRIVEN, the awards traditionally select the 10 best vehicles from the new cars over the past 12 months, and put them through a rigorous two-day test schedule, where some of the country’s best motoring judges assess a full range of criteria, from price and value, to safety, equipment, features, technology, and driving dynamics in road, performance and unsealed surfaces and scenarios.
In these Covid times, we’ve had to tailor the programme to suit, so for this year, it was important that we return from the hiatus of 2020, and delve into the best cars on sale, not just from the past 12 months. So that’s our main criteria, that as long as the vehicle is on sale, allowing past winners the chance to regain their title. Like the Ford Focus, that claimed the 2019 AA DRIVEN NZ COTY.
We’ve broken down the classes to enable consumer analysis and choices across a range of categories and models, and we’ve also introduced a new Clean & Green class, highlighting the best choices in the emerging BEV, PHEV and Hybrid categories, which align with the government’s Clean Car Programme.
And there’s also you, the buyer, who can have their say with our Peoples’ Choice category. We’ll have public voting, with the winner decided by input from the tens-of-thousands of AA and DRIVEN followers.
So keep an eye on the coming weeks to see the poll open, and read what are our finalists are in each of the categories.
2021 AA DRIVEN NZ COTY CLASSES
- Small SUV
- Medium SUV
- Large SUV
- Passenger (sedan, hatch, wagon)
- LCV (Light Commercial Vehicles, ute, van)
- Clean & Green: BEV, PHEV, Hybrid
- Sports & Performance
- Luxury (over $100k)
- AA Safety
- Peoples’ Choice
And of course the outright AA DRIVEN New Zealand Car of the Year.