ECOTY: JUDGES' NOTES

Judges remark on the Ecoty Car of the Year 2022

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JUDGE'S NOTES: RICHARD MEADEN

Meaden's best drive came in the cheapest car in the test

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I'VE enjoyed driving as much as I did on this year's eCoty. From the anticipation of heading north to join the rest of the evo team to the satisfaction of heading back home again tired but fulfilled after a brilliant week, pretty much every drive I had was a corker.

It was a vintage eCoty. Absentees Barker, Catchpole and Towler were missed, but the location was fresh (at least as a backdrop for this test) with awesome roads and little traffic. The weather was unseasonably kind, with a perfect mix of sun and rain to build a detailed picture of each car's capabilities. Most importantly, the epicentre of our road network was a café with apparently limitless supplies of cake.

Rather than blowing the budget on hotels, we all stayed together in an enclave of converted barns and outbuildings. It was reminiscent of evo's formative years when we used to rent a big old gaff on Anglesey. It reminded this grumpy old man why he's fortunate to work with such a great bunch of blokes, though to be fair the benefits of seniority meant I wasn't sharing a bathroom with Aston 'best leave it five minutes' Parrott...

I don't recall another year in which mid-engined cars featured so heavily. Remarkably, if it wasn't for issues of availability we could have had more, with the Corvette C8, Huracán Tecnica and Lotus Emira all eligible and deserving of inclusion. We'd also hoped for the new Civic Type R, but couldn't quite finagle one out of Honda.