Nominees for 2018 North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year were announced Thursday morning, with Chevrolet and Honda leading the talented pack with three vehicles each.<\/p>\n
Chevy\u2019s mid-size Equinox and full-size Traverse will both vie for the SUV crown, while the brand\u2019s Colorado ZR2 off-road pickup will be a favorite for Truck of the Year. Honda has defied the decline in sedan sales \u2014 its\u00a02016 Car of the Year compact Civic<\/a>\u00a0continues to rack up record sales \u2014 and will field both the mid-size Accord and hydrogen-powered Clarity for car honors.<\/p>\n Among luxury makes, Alfa Romeo, BMW and Audi have two nominees each. Alfa\u2019s nimble Giulia sedan and Stelvio SUV are the automaker\u2019s first mass-market entries for the award as the brand seeks to post a win in a premium segment long defined by German excellence. Another startup of note is Silicon Valley-based Tesla, which will put up its Model 3, a sub-$40,000, 200-mile-plus range electric that\u2019s aimed at the heart of the premium market. The Model 3 hopes to follow in the footsteps of Chevy\u2019s 238-mile-range\u00a0Bolt EV which won 2017 Car of the Year<\/a><\/p>\n The GT is the production version of the race car that\u00a0won the 24 Hours of LeMans\u2019 GTE Pro class last year<\/a>\u00a0on the 50th anniversary of Ford\u2019s historic defeat of Ferrari. The iconic sports car was not deemed eligible for the award given its low sales volume, its $450,000 sticker price and lack of availability to the general public. Ford has selected all 750 buyers of the GT through an application process.<\/p>\n Dodge\u2019s 840-horsepower Demon stole the New York Auto Show this year with its eye-popping 9.65-second quarter-mile time, a production car record. Like Ford\u2019s GT, Dodge is building it as the brand\u2019s halo vehicle. However, with the same drivetrain and structure as Dodge\u2019s 707-horse Challenger SRT Hellcat \u2014 introduced for the 2015 model year \u2014 the Demon is not sufficiently altered to meet NACTOY\u2019s criteria as a separate model.<\/p>\n In the truck category two titanic SUVs \u2013 the three-row Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator \u2014 are entered with Chevy\u2019s midsize ZR2 pickup. Both utes qualify for the truck category as they sit on pickup-shared, body-on-frame architectures with resulting towing capacity that counts as a significant reason for purchase.<\/p>\n The award is one of the industry\u2019s most prestigious with the jury consisting of independent journalists from a range of media outlets. With sport utilities now accounting for a significant majority of vehicle sales \u2014\u00a047 percent of all vehicles sold in June<\/a>\u00a0versus just 37 percent cars \u2014 the award for the\u00a0first time honored utes<\/a>\u00a0as a separate category last year. And while auto sales this year\u00a0are off their record 2016 pace<\/a>, the thirst for SUVs has not abated, with 20 of the NACTOY entries coming in the utility category versus 12 cars and three trucks.<\/p>\n Come September, the nominees will be winnowed to a list of semifinalists by some 60 automotive journalists from the U.S. and Canada, including the author of this article. The semifinalists will be further evaluated in October over a week of extended testing, thrashing and jawboning in the Metro Detroit area.<\/p>\n Three finalists from each category will then be selected and the winners announced at the opening of the 2018 Detroit auto show in January. The award honors excellence in innovation, design, safety, performance, technology, driver satisfaction and value.<\/p>\n NACTOY nominees<\/strong><\/p>\n Car of the year<\/strong><\/p>\n Alfa Romeo Giulia<\/p>\n Audi A5 Sportback<\/p>\n BMW 5-series<\/p>\n Honda Clarity<\/p>\n Honda Accord<\/p>\n Hyundai Ioniq<\/p>\n Kia Stinger<\/p>\n Lexus LC500<\/p>\n Porsche Panamera<\/p>\n Subaru Impreza<\/p>\n Tesla Model 3<\/p>\n Toyota Camry<\/p>\n Utility of the year<\/strong><\/p>\n Audi Q5\/S5<\/p>\n Alfa Romeo Stelvio<\/p>\n BMW X3<\/p>\n Buick Enclave<\/p>\n Chevrolet Equinox<\/p>\n Chevrolet Traverse<\/p>\n GMC Terrain<\/p>\n Honda Odyssey<\/p>\n Jeep Compass<\/p>\n Kia Niro<\/p>\n Land Rover Discovery<\/p>\n Range Rover Velar<\/p>\n Mazda CX-5<\/p>\n Mini Countryman<\/p>\n Nissan Rogue Sport<\/p>\n Subaru Crosstrek<\/p>\n Toyota CH-R<\/p>\n Volkswagen Atlas<\/p>\n Volkswagen Tiguan<\/p>\n Volvo XC60<\/p>\n Truck<\/strong><\/p>\n Chevrolet Colorado ZR2<\/p>\n Ford Expedition<\/p>\n Lincoln Navigator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nominees for 2018 North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year were announced Thursday morning, with Chevrolet and Honda leading the talented pack with three vehicles each. Chevy\u2019s mid-size Equinox and full-size Traverse will both vie for the SUV crown, while the brand\u2019s Colorado ZR2 off-road pickup will be a favorite for Truck of […]<\/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\/20823"}],"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=20823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20824,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823\/revisions\/20824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}