Honda Civic is NACTOY Car of the Year, Ford Takes Other Two Categories
The North American International Auto Show, aka the Detroit Auto Show, isn’t taking place in January anymore. It’s set for a move to September.
But that didn’t stop the traditional North American Car and Truck of the Year award ceremony from taking place at Cobo Center Huntington Place this morning.
Meanwhile, I watched via live stream from Chicago as the winners were unveiled. They were the Honda Civic (car), Ford Maverick (truck), and Ford Bronco (utility).
Can’t say we’re shocked — Chris and I gave the Maverick our car/truck of the year nod, and I gave the Bronco an honorable mention in that piece. Somehow, I’ve still not driven the Civic — I was scheduled for a loan a while ago but the car was damaged and I didn’t get to see it — but everything I’ve heard so far has been positive.
The other finalists were the Lucid Air and Volkswagen Golf GTI/ Golf R (car), Hyundai Santa Cruz and Rivian R1T (truck), and Genesis GV70 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 (utility).
[Image: Honda]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Keep on working, great job!
I will contend that the Maverick is the best new-vehicle introduction of the last decade - or more! - and if it wasn't production-restrained by the current situation(s) it might have become the best-selling new vehicle introduction in a long time. (By "best" I don't mean it's a great vehicle, although it's pretty darn good. But I think it's "best" in terms of a combination of vehicle design, powertrains, and especially pricing. For about half the price of the average new vehicle, the Maverick can fulfill the vehicle needs of probably 50+% of what people *need* in a vehicle.)
2 of these will will be on my list in MY'23. More and more I'm thinking the Maverick could be it. It just checks a lot of my boxes, and the pickup bed is a bonus that I wasn't really asking for. Part of me thinks they should have given it a round headlight fascia treatment and made it a part of the Bronco range (Bronco Courier? Bronco Express? Bronco Pony?), but still, it's a great vehicle. Civic hatch is great too, but the color palette is drab as ever.