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About Australia's Best Cars Awards


About Australia's Best Cars Awards

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Each year, Australia's top motoring experts put the most popular cars through their paces over hundreds of kilometres of rigorous road tests to determine Australia's Best Cars.

The cars, ranging from small to luxury cars and 4WDs, are tested on some of the country's harshest roads and measured on a range of criteria, including handling, safety, security and value.

The Australia's Best Cars awards program stands out from other car awards because the judging process incorporates as many measurable elements as possible. Basically, if it can be measured, it is. This is why ABC is considered the nation's most comprehensive and independent consumer focussed vehicle testing and awards program.

All information on the best cars program is made available to the public in a number of ways including the Australias Best Cars magazine, the motoring clubs' advisory services and Australias Best Cars website.

So how are the cars scored?

Well, it's no easy task, given that the field now compromises more than 300 new cars. The judging panel is made up of 10 club representatives from across the country who tests the cars using the strict ABC testing process.

There are three key areas which the judges consider:

  • Value for money
  • Design and function and
  • On the road.

Within each of these areas there are up to eight criteria. Each criterion is given a score between 1 and 10 with 10 being the highest possible score.

The scores are then weighted - critical, high, medium or low - according to their importance to the buyers in the relevant market segment.

In 2010, there were some important changes made to ABC, the first of which was the introduction of three more categories. This was needed to reflect the growing number of light and SUV vehicles in the market.

The 15 categories are as follows:

  • Best Light Car under $20,000
  • Best Light Car over $20,000
  • Best Small Car under $35,000
  • Best Small Car over $35,000
  • Best Medium Car under $50,000
  • Best Medium Car over $50,000
  • Best Large Car under $60,000
  • Best Large Car over $60,000
  • Best People Mover
  • Best Sports Car under $80,000
  • Best Sports Car over $80,000
  • Best SUV under $40,000
  • Best SUV over $40,000
  • Best Luxury SUV
  • Best All-Terrain 4WD

Once the top three cars in each category have been decided the judges spend five days at a special driver facility in Angelsea, Victoria testing the three finalists against each other over a variety of road surfaces and a number of different exercises on the skid pan and high speed loops.

Finally, the judges sit down at the end of each day and nut out the winner of each car. 

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