carsales Car of the Year 2019: Numbers of note

The largest number to come out of this year's running of carsales Car of the Year presented by Shell V-Power is the aggregated vehicle value. Our field of 28 cars is collectively valued at over $1.7 million.

When a Bugatti can top that alone, it’s worth considering that each car in our field is limited to costing less than $250,000. In fact, the most expensive model in the field is the Audi Q8 55 TFSI quattro, at $128,942. Not far over the 50 per cent mark of our price ceiling.

Altogether, the 28 cars taking part – our largest field to date – produce a combined peak power output of 4702kW, according to specifications from the manufacturers.

Of the cars participating, 18 are turbocharged. Of those, just four are diesels, the other 14 burn petrol.

Toyota's RAV4 Hybrid is the one and only hybrid, but three – Nissan LEAF, Hyundai Kona Electric and Tesla Model 3 – are battery electric vehicles.

Although 15 of the vehicles are SUVs, only two can seat seven. Five cars are built in the USA (including three SUVs that Aussies, and a certain US president, usually presume to be German), and 10 vehicles wear prestige badges.

Our short drive loop was 37.5km, with 30 minutes allotted to completion of the route for each of the 28 cars. Some of the more easily confused or should that be geographically challenged journalists travelled significantly further than that!

But those who could follow a map covered a distance of over 1000km for each of the judges in each car. That didn't include the drive to and from Melbourne (three and a half hours each way), nor the commuting between lodgings at Lake Hume and the base of operations at Wodonga TAFE's Logic Centre campus at Barnawartha North.

The schedule suggested 14 hours was allowed for on-road testing, which didn't include the time spent transferring from one car to the next or writing notes and comments for each vehicle. In reality, on some days the cars were driven from dawn to dusk…

The crew for the event included 12 judges with more than 240 years of combined automotive journalism experience, three videographers, a still photographer, a producer, two car wranglers, a logistics expert and a paramedic. All up, there were 20 workers on the ground – all of them needing to be fed, watered and housed.

And while no one is officially talking dollars, with the sums of money racked up in bar bills over the five nights, we reckon the Boat Shed at Lake Hume Resort will welcome us back with open arms next year...

We’re just not sure about the carsales accountants…