2022 South African Car of the Year winners announced

The South African Car of the Year (Coty) competition has unveiled the winners of its 2022 contest. This year's competition's jurors selected 25 semi-finalists from more than 49 entrants. After a four-week scoring process, the superb Toyota Corolla Cross has been voted as the South African Car of the Year.

Mercedes Benz C-Class won this year's Juror's Excellence Award. Introduced in 2021, the award only considers the raw scoring of the expert jurors without automated scoring factors. The overall winner includes additional scoring criteria like sales, segment share and spec-adjusted pricing.

The category winners for this year's competition are:

Compact Category: Toyota Urban Cruiser
Compact Family Category: Toyota Corolla Cross
Midsize Category: Mercedes Benz C-Class
Performance Category: Volkswagen Golf GTI
New-energy Category: Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid
Adventure SUV Category: Toyota Landcruiser 300
Double Cab 4x4 Category: Nissan Navara

The Budget and Premium categories did not have any 2022 contenders.

"One thing has remained true to this remarkable contest; it celebrates and rewards automotive excellence. Our jurors are experts in their field and clearly understand vehicles and the mobility sector," says Graham Eagle, chairman of the 2022 Coty committee.

The Coty scoring process is much more than just juror scoring. Once the expert panel concluded scoring, the automated scoring factors that cover sales performance, segment share and value for money are applied. The guild's Coty competition partner, Lightstone Auto, provided the automated scoring information, which provides data-driven insights, online market intelligence and new vehicle sales data about the South African automotive industry.

"The ongoing scoring system was developed in 2017 to enable jurors to compare category contenders. Every year, we adapt the scoring system slightly to consider new global and local market trends to ensure the credibility and objectivity of our competition," adds Eagle.