The moment that decided the 2019 carsales Car of the Year

It’s easy to think car of the year awards are about numbers. You know – 28 finalists, 12 judges, six days, 4000 lattes, innumerable hissy fits. All that sort of stuff.

But, you’d be wrong.

Sure, carsales Car of the Year, this year presented by Shell V-Power, incorporates all that, but it is actually decided in the moments. As in ‘uh-hah’, the penny drops sort of moments.

For me, although I didn’t realise it at the time, a key moment came on a lovely, challenging part of our test route on the NSW and Victorian border, near Luke Hume.

Constructed of coarse bitumen, it lazily wound right and shallowly downhill to cross a creek. Changing briefly to a concrete surface along the way, it then reverted to blue chip and curved left and a few degrees upward.

As well as a change of direction and surface, the BMW 330i M Sport sedan I was driving also had a series of sharp and soft-edged bumps and depressions with which to cope.

And it did so brilliantly. The adaptive dampers killed vertical movements in a single motion – no aftershocks (pardon the poor pun). And the tight body control eliminated lateral head-shaking.

And yet all this without jarring inputs.

Where BMWs would normally sacrifice comfort to achieve such handling, the 330i flowed over the top of this crude, testing and wonderful bit of road like sweet treacle.

Then it imperceptibly dropped a couple of its eight gears and the 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder leapt forward with purpose. Not effortlessly, like creamy BMW sixes do, but with enough enthusiasm to be recognisably from the same car company.

That moment wasn’t why my vote went to the BMW, but it was one of many moments that built up to a decisive decision.

And I was anything but an outlier. Most of us ended up voting for the BMW 330i M Sport as 2019 carsales Car of the Year.

In fact, carsales COTY 2019 was a triumph for BMW for more than the latest generation of its iconic rear-wheel drive sports sedan. The X3 medium SUV finished third in the voting, the X5 also made the top 10.

They did so not only because they were fun to drive, but also because they were well packaged, well equipped and a quantum leap from only a few years ago in the design and quality of their cabins, controls and instrumentation.

“BMW has returned to form,” declared Nadine Armstrong.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve jumped in a BMW and thought it had this sense of occasion.”

In its fifth year, carsales Car of the Year presented by Shell V-Power has evolved in the detail rather than the substance for 2019. It’s one award for the best new car of the past 12 months based on value for money, cost to own and run, engineering excellence, user-friendliness, safety, innovation and emotional X-factor.

All that filtered through two questions the judges had to ask themselves: would we recommend that car to a friend and would we buy it ourselves?

In a switch of schedule, days one and two of this year’s event were spent driving. Yep, not plugging and playing with smartphone interfaces – well, not if you didn’t want to – but cruising the roads in the region of Lake Hume to assess how our contenders went, stopped and turned… And how good it felt to be inside them while they were doing it.

These are great climbing, descending, twisting and lumpy roads on which to do such things. They also have broken edges, as I discovered in the Ford Focus ST-Line, dropping the left-front off the bitumen, dinging the alloy rim and flattening the Michelin Pilot Sport encasing it.

In my defence it was early in the drive, I was still adjusting to the Ford’s overly light steering and turned into the corner a fraction too enthusiastically.

Funnily enough this line of argument didn’t elicit much sympathy from my fellow judges – especially as I was one of the first drivers into one of the pre-event favourites and it was a Sunday. So, the Focus was out of action until Monday morning.

Thankfully, no other damage was incurred despite many hundreds of kilometres being wracked up by the judges.

Well, maybe not to the vehicles physically, but certainly some reputations suffered a ding or too.

The Focus was among them. Along with a number of other new small cars including the Mazda3 G20 Touring and Kia Cerato S, it failed to progress to the final 10.

“Fun to drive but the ride is poor,” was Ali Lawrence’s assessment of the Focus.

“Chassis is good, but the engine is lacking,” was Matt Brogan’s view of the 3.

The Lexus UX was universally disdained for offering no driving personality, and its sister brand Toyota’s new RAV4 suffered the same fate, presenting as far from the polished car we thought it was at launch.

Meanwhile at the opposite end of the performance (and price) spectrum expected dynamic stars like the BMW Z4-based Toyota Supra and muscular rear-drive twin-turbo V6 Genesis G70 were getting thumbs up.

Most people came back raving about the ride, handling and steering poise of the BMW 330i, but Brogan and co-pilot Feann Torr said they were understandably disturbed by easily provokable oversteer (rear tyre sliding).

However, no-one else experienced that issue, so it was back to the test loop to re-try the vehicle at the end of the day. None of the histrionics re-appeared. Perhaps the early cold conditions or an errant road surface were at fault?

More judges discovered the otherwise excellent Volkswagen Touareg SUV far too enthusiastic in its stability control interventions. This was somewhat bizarre as the very same spec vehicle has behaved faultlessly as part of carsales.com.au’s long-term fleet.

Again though, it was a minority experience and not enough to knock the VW too far down the order.

Relatively humble offerings like the Hyundai Venue were copping praise that echoed our experience at the press launch just weeks earlier.

“An honourable mention for the Korean car manufacturers who continue to do local tuning in Australia,” enthused our UK-import John Mahoney.

“It’s impressive a Hyundai Venue can behave like that cross-country... It has a simple, unflappable nature.”

From Lake Hume, it was a commute cross Albury-Wodonga to the Barnawartha Logic Centre for two days of detailed study. Practicality and presentation, innovation and technology and dynamics and safety were all subject to forensic examination.

The judges split into three groups and went at it, raising vehicles on hoists to inspect their undersides, loading their boots to examine space and then taking them on to the track so mechanical bits and electronic driver aids could be assessed in emergency stops and the double lane-change manoeuvre – or moose test as it is colloquially known.

Again, there were star acts, reasonable efforts and the plain mediocre.

The BMW 330i again starred whatever was being tested, including its interior.

“It’s fit and finish is so hard to fault,” said Brogan.

“There are a couple of innovative ideas, not only in terms of upping the prestige but the feeling that you are in something special, like trimming things that don’t necessarily need to be trimmed and covering things that don’t necessarily need to be covered.

“A lot of effort had been shown.”

Another premium mid-size sedan, the electric Tesla Model 3, was getting a far more mixed reception.

“It’s a car you love or hate and I love it,” declared Feann Torr.

“It’s the most user-unfriendly car here,” recounted Marton Pettendy.

The centre of debate was the huge centre-mounted screen via which almost all of the Tesla’s controls are operated, even the glovebox opener.

At least the Tesla had its supporters. The Mercedes-Benz GLE SUV was universally panned for its overly complex controls, overt design and leviathan weight.

“I’d be embarrassed to turn up in that thing,” exclaimed Paul Gover.

“It says ‘hey look at me I’m a tosser and I’ve got too much money’.”

Out on the track the usual suspects were starring in the various dynamic tests and some others were having their shortcomings badly exposed. The Holden Acadia had the longest braking distance and really struggled through the cones.

But like several other vehicles – the otherwise appealing Hyundai Kona Electric and generally disappointing Nissan LEAF EV among them – at least part of its problem was down to tyres that offered little grip.

“Rubber is such an important part of determining how a vehicle behaves on the road,” said test driver Sam Charlwood.

“After all, it’s what connects the car directly with the surface.”

So, after all those moments, it did come back to the numbers. Each judge rated each car based on the Lake Hume road loop, each Barnawartha assessment group submitted their votes and then Redbook vehicle cost and ownership data were mixed in with all that.

And out popped a top 10.

Then it was a 3-2-1 vote for each judge, from which the BMW 3 Series emerged well ahead of the Volkswagen Touareg and BMW X3. The Tesla, the understated yet worthy Volvo S60, Supra and the dynamically excellent Jaguar XE were the other vote-getters.

This was a dominant victory. Nine out of 12 judges gave three votes to the 330i, 10 had it in their top three. Only two left it out altogether.

“It probably would have been my number four,” conceded one of them, Feann Torr.

“But I’m not upset it won; it is definitely at the pointy end.”

In fact, no-one was upset the winner was the 3 Series, which marks a true return to form for BMW.

And yes – just in case you’re wondering – that’s my answer to the big question. Like all judges in what was the most unanimous carsales Car of the Year decision ever, I’d happily recommend the BMW 3 Series to a friend and I’d just as happily buy one myself.

After all, who wouldn’t want to experience the moments such an outstanding carsales Car of the Year can deliver?