The NCAA has its Final Four, the NACTOY has its Final Three.<\/p>\n
The process of picking three nominees for North American Car and Truck\/Utility of the Year began this week as the NACTOY jury winnowed the list of 44 eligible 2017 models to 29 \u201csemifinalists\u201d in three categories: car, truck and utility vehicle. For the first time in the 23-year history of the awards, utility vehicles get their own category in recognition of the dominant place that car-based crossovers and SUVs now hold in the marketplace.<\/p>\n
General Motors Co. leads the list of nominees with seven vehicles, including the Chevrolet Bolt \u2013 the first electric vehicle under $40,000 to get over 200 miles in range. Hyundai\/Kia Motor Group has the second most nominees (four), notably the Genesis G90, the badge\u2019s first entry in the luxury market.<\/p>\n
NACTOY is the only major automotive award judged by an independent jury of automotive journalists from the U.S. and Canada. Dozens of journalists (including the author of this article) will drive the vehicles and winnow the field to the Final Three candidates in early December.<\/p>\n
The winners will be announced in January during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Taking top honors in 2016 were the Honda Civic as Car of the Year and Volvo XC90 for truck.<\/p>\n
2017 NACTOY semifinalists<\/strong><\/p>\n Cars<\/strong><\/p>\n Acura NSX<\/p>\n Audi A4<\/p>\n Buick LaCrosse<\/p>\n Cadillac CT6<\/p>\n Chevrolet Cruze<\/p>\n Chevrolet Bolt<\/p>\n Genesis G90<\/p>\n Hyundai Elantra<\/p>\n Jaguar XE<\/p>\n Kia Cadenza<\/p>\n Lincoln Continental<\/p>\n Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan<\/p>\n Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman<\/p>\n Toyota Prius Prime<\/p>\n Volvo S90<\/p>\n Utility vehicles<\/strong><\/p>\n Audi Q7<\/p>\n Buick Envision<\/p>\n Cadillac XT5<\/p>\n Chrysler Pacifica<\/p>\n GMC Acadia<\/p>\n Infiniti QX30<\/p>\n Kia Sportage<\/p>\n Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class<\/p>\n Jaguar F-Pace<\/p>\n Mazda CX-9<\/p>\n Nissan Armada<\/p>\n Trucks<\/strong><\/p>\n Ford F-series Super Duty pickup<\/p>\n Ford F-150 Raptor<\/p>\n Honda Ridgeline<\/p>\n Nissan Titan half-ton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NCAA has its Final Four, the NACTOY has its Final Three. The process of picking three nominees for North American Car and Truck\/Utility of the Year began this week as the NACTOY jury winnowed the list of 44 eligible 2017 models to 29 \u201csemifinalists\u201d in three categories: car, truck and utility vehicle. For the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19278,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions\/19278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}