World Car Awards has kicked off its 23rd season, assembling 100 international jurors to begin the Road to World Car 2027 and to find a successor to the 2026 BMW iX3 as World Car of the Year. Jurors from all over the world, including Motoring Research’s Richard Aucock, will now begin testing cars from a provisional longlist of eligible vehicles.
The jury includes noted automotive analyst Richard Aucock of Motoring Research.
For the 14th consecutive year, the program has been independently ranked as the most visible automotive awards, reaching more than 493 million people during the 2026 season and leading visibility rankings across the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Chair of the steering committee Steve Fowler said: “There’s always something special about the start of a new World Car season because, after all the planning, it’s time to get back to what World Car is really about, driving, evaluating, and celebrating the very best new cars from around the world. Our jurors are among the most respected and influential automotive journalists in the world, and they bring an enormous amount of experience, knowledge, and, importantly, different perspectives from different markets.”
The first milestone is the annual LA Test Drives event in Pasadena, California, scheduled for November.
After the test drives, jurors will complete an initial round of voting, leading to the announcement of the Top 10 finalists in January. The same month will see Top 5 finalists for World Luxury Car, World Performance Car, World Urban Car, and World Car Design of the Year. The World Car Person of the Year will be announced in February, before the Top Three in the World finalists are revealed in early March. The winning cars will finally be revealed at the New York International Auto Show later in March.