Instruments of torture

I sit on the jury of a thing called Car Of The Year. You’ve probably heard of it. It has many imitators – World Car Of Year, UK Car Of The Year, Car Designed On Tuesdays By Men Wearing Silly Hats Of The Year and so on. But we are the original, insofar as juries comprising motoring journalists sourced from far and wide, rather than a single publication, are concerned.

Our first award went to the Rover P5 in 1964, since when notable winners have included the Porsche 928 (1978), Fords Mondeo and Focus (1994 and 1999) and Jaguar I-Pace (2019). Perhaps less worthy recipients have included the Renault 9 (1982), Fiat Bravo and Brava (1996) and Vauxhall Insignia (2009). Those wondering where the Alpine A110 came – our only 10/10 car – it tied for points with the I-Pace in 2019, the latter only claiming the prize on countback because a greater number of jurors had placed it at the top of their lists than the Alpine.

Anyway, each year a shortlist of seven cars is arrived at, and each year I arrange a day for the six jurors based in the UK, so we can drive them all back-to-back on roads we know inside out, and which are a proper challenge and relevant to the majority of people for whom we write. And this year we converged as usual at Silverstone not to hare around the track, but because the circuit is kind enough to let us use its vast car parks for the transporters disgorging various different models of all the short-listed cars.