MATT SAUNDERS
Testing, testing
One of these seven will soon be crowned 2026 Car of the Year
If you want to do the fairest and most scrupulous job as a road tester, to reconfirm an impression or be sure about a relative strength or weakness, the best thing is simply to start over. Rinse and repeat. Come with a fresh set of senses and just give the cars on which you’re about to pronounce one more chance.
The more important the pronouncement, of course, the stronger the case to hit the reset button. That’s why, come the darkest winter months, the UK-based jurors for the Car of the Year award gather together the seven new cars that have made the competition’s final shortlist – the result of an initial round of voting in the early autumn – and engage in a fresh set of back-to-back driving on the roads around Silverstone circuit. They may be cars already quite well known to most of those voting, but back-to-back comparison on the most relevant kinds of roads never fails to be revealing.