ABDC 2017: The search for Australia's Best Driver's Car

Australia’s Best Driver’s Car takes a unique approach to determining the country’s top driver’s car. While there are other sports and performance car shootouts elsewhere, motoring.com.au stands alone in focussing on the purest elements of driving, and dismissing, for the most part, all that is secondary.

It’s for this reason we test such a variety of cars.

Our price cap serves only to keep ABDC relatable. In no other test will you find cars ranging in price from $40,000 to $250,000 compared on their own merits side-by-side. We strive to single-out those cars that have impressed our critics most during the year, and bring only these to our premier comparison. In that way, the cars assembled here are already winners.

In the lead up to ABDC, our senior road testers debated the pros and cons of every sports and performance car released in the past 12 months, carving and culling the list until a field of 12 competitors arose.

As we’ve stated previously, the field will ultimately be determined by availability, but this year the field of hot hatches, cool coupes, sizzling sedans and one red-hot roadster was essentially as picked. Only one or two low volume vehicles were not made available to us.

There are no special imports here, no kit cars, and no tuning shop specials. These are production cars available from the showroom floor, right now.

So who’s fronting the start in Australia’s Best Driver’s car 2017?

Starting at the affordable end of the spectrum we find the Abarth 124 Spider ($41,990), Volkswagen Golf GTI 40 Years ($46,990), Ford Focus RS ($50,990) and BMW M140i Performance Package ($64,990). It’s anyone’s game here; remember though, price is not factored into the equation. ABDC is all about how cars make us feel behind the wheel.

In the middle reaches it’s a close game. German rivals Audi S5 quattro ($105,800) and Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe 4MATIC ($105,615) go head-to-head with Japanese newcomer the Infiniti Q60 Red Sport ($88,900). All three coupes feature turbocharged V6 power, and all are guaranteed to challenge the hearts and minds of our judges.

Finally, in the upper echelon of our price set, we find the Porsche Cayman S ($140,300), Alfa Romeo Giulia QV ($143,900), BMW M3 Competition ($144,900), and revamped Nissan GT-R ($189,000); as well as home-grown hero, the HSV GTSR W1 ($169,990). And this therefore is the last time a locally-produced car will feature as Australia’s Best Driver’s Car.

To determine the overall winner for 2017, our judges spent almost a week assessing the field over a challenging series of Tasmanian roads. We enlisted the service of our two favourite Australian race-car drivers along the way — motoring.com.au regular and Supercar ace, Luke Youlden, and two-time Targa Tasmania and multi-GT and sports-sedan race winner, Greg Crick.

Tasmania’s Targa roads don’t lie, and neither does our GPS-based lap timing system. Crick and Youlden thoroughly examined the dynamic performance of our entrants in the car coliseum that is Baskerville Raceway.

Combining the unambiguous interpretations of Crick and Youlden, the hard data from track (and dragstrip), and most importantly the feedback of our road test team over thousands of kilometres (including closed road testing), we’ve ranked the fabulous 12 in order of how they perform in responding to and communicating with the driver. It’s the crucial part of the driver’s car recipe.

And now, a winner sits in waiting…

Join us throughout the week as we pull apart 12 of the very best driver’s cars on the road today to find Australia’s Best Driver’s Car.