carsales Car of the Year 2019: London calling

Even before I'd climbed on board the bomber bound Down Under, I knew the next seven days would be the highlight of my motoring year.

An irresistible opportunity to compare the finest cars of 2019 in the one place, over one week, on some great Australian roads awaited.

Not that being a judge on carsales Car of the Year presented by Shell V-Power is one giant joyride. Far from it. Indeed, the driving element only accounts for a fraction of the actual process of evaluating and, in most cases, eliminating cars that just don't make the grade.

So what makes a carsales Car of the Year worth more than any other annual award? For the outside (sort of) looking in, the answer is found both in the process and the diverse bunch of folk judging.

Let's start with the people. Put bluntly, I've never been thrown together with a better qualified bunch of experts to truly judge a car. From Tim Britten, with his decades of experience, to Ali Lawrence, who despite her tender age could teach many a grizzled hack about the latest developments in infotainment systems. And with a karting background, the girl can drive!

Then, of course, there's the structure of how the event is run.

Stretching the judging process over almost a week buys valuable time for a carefully considered verdict. While some events compress the judging process to buy time for the inevitable photography and filming, the carsales process doesn't rush the decision.

It's perhaps no surprise then that this year our result was (almost) completely unanimous – despite a large field of 28 finalists battling it out and a classy top ten closely contesting the final part of the process.

Despite not winning, a very special mention must also go to Kia and Hyundai, which continue to impress with the quality of their local suspension tune. For my money, this demonstrates that – despite the demise of local manufacturing – Aussie chassis engineers remain at the top of their game.

The result is that even cars like the entry-level Hyundai Venue cope admirably well with Australian's unique (read: awful) roads, shrugging off the coarse surface, odd cambers and evil mid-corner bumps that would throw lesser cars off course.

After six full days of careful deliberation, it's telling that when we finally delivered the verdict, in my near 19 years of writing about cars, I've never been more confident that we'd anointed the best car of 2019.

To the winner goes the (deserved) spoils.