What's the news?
There was nervous tension up and down the country in PR offices leading up to the announcement of the Top Gear Car of the Year Awards. There were of course numerous category winners, plus the main award of overall Car of the Year. In addition to the respective categories, the show's presenters Clarkson, Hammond and May also listed their own personal choices in the winning list.
In a year that saw an unprecedented number of new exotica hitting the tarmac, it was McLaren's P1 that grabbed the coveted Hypercar of the Year, but it was also Clarkson's Car of the Year. Not many have driven the successor to the legendary McLaren F1, but those who have seem to be in agreement.
Moving slightly down the price-scale, Top Gear's choice of Supercar of the Year was awarded to the latest offering from Maranello, the Ferrari 458 Speciale. This more hardcore version of the successful 458 Italia gives the car a much harder edge, something that led James May to also call it his Car of the Year. Commenting on it, he said: "I loved it, and what I loved was that I was still driving a 458, which is already my favourite car. But it was as if someone had gone over my sensory receptors with a whetstone and sharpened them up a bit." In order to keep some degree of diplomacy between the supercar manufacturers, Richard Hammond (unsurprisingly) voted the Porsche 911 GT3 as his Car of the Year while the Stuttgart-based company also went on to clinch Manufacturer of the Year.
The cynics could see the award for Convertible of the Year going to the Jaguar F-Type as being simply patriotic, but our editor, Shane O' Donoghue, having just spent a week driving the car, would agree. On the more sensible side of things, Citroen collected yet another award for its new C4 Picasso. This time it won Family Car of the Year, just a week after winning the Continental Irish Car of the Year here in Ireland.
Mercedes-Benz was the only other company to scoop two awards, winning the suitably-titled Lairy Car of the Year for the SLS AMG Black Series, and Luxury Car of the Year for the all-new S-Class. Further up the luxurious scale, Rolls-Royce's new Wraith coupé collected the Rather Splendid Motor Car of the Year award - an award named like that could only really go to a Rolls, right?
Top Gear's Bargain of the Year was awarded to Hyundai's new i10, a car that continues to impress those who drive it. Top Gear said "If you buy other budget cars, there are always compromises: with the i10, there aren't. This is definitely not a car with the build quality of a biscuit tin. It's as library-quiet as cars three or four times the price, with virtually no wind or road noise." On the slightly larger side of things, the new Range Rover Sport was awarded SUV of the Year, beating BMW's new X5 to the title.
Ensuring that the Americans weren't left out in the cold, the Corvette Stingray collected the Not the Muscle Car of the Year award, presumably due to the fact that it now is more set up with European drivers in mind. Another car that proved successful on American soil was the Peugeot 208 T16, which in the very capable hands of Sebastien Loeb clinched the Pikes Peak record. Thanks to this, the 875hp monster duly won the Racecar of the Year award.
This year saw two very different approaches to environmentally-friendly motoring and both won awards. BMW's all-electric i3 took home the title of Green Car of the Year while Volkswagen's radical XL1, with a claimed fuel economy figure of 313mpg, won the German manufacturer the award for Innovation of the Year.
Naturally though, all of these awards, as nice as they are, pale into insignificance when it comes to the overall Top Gear Car of the Year. The winner is unlikely to be disputed by anyone who has had the good fortune to get to drive it. Ford's Fiesta ST beat cars costing vast multiples of its price to win not just Hot Hatch of the Year but overall Top Gear Car of the Year.
Anything else?
Possibly the best award though was the Thing of the Year, which went to Honda for its crazy 209km/h ride-on lawnmower. We don't have a need for nor a garden big enough for a grass-cutter capable of a four-second 0-100km/h dash, but we really want one!