EVO CAR OF THE YEAR 2024

Nine brilliant cars, from flyweight roadsters to bombastic supercars to a be-stickered estate(!), do battle on some of Europe's finest and most spectacular roads. Which will emerge victorious? Place your bets now.

- CON PARROTT

LATE SEPTEMBER, AND THE SPANISH SUN STILL HAS plenty of light to give. A little less in the way of warmth on this first early morning, but it's no hardship to wait under clearing skies as the final contender completes the last few kilometres of the 1432 it will travel to reach the car park of the Hotel Luze El Toro on the edge of Pamplona. Very soon, a grey MAN truck will pull up and our line-up will be complete.

It's been quite the year for the driver's car, with a steady stream of contenders beginning to appear even before the ink had dried on 2023's eCoty verdict. Updates to existing favourites, all-new interpretations of old hands, the odd curveball and special, an estate car that should know better and some factory-applied sticker jobs that might attract the interest of the taste police.

Thankfully eCoty cares little for the aesthetic (one look at your judges will confirm this) and plenty for the dynamic and the thrill. To uncover and engage with these traits, we've found a location that both plays to every contender's strengths but won't hold back in exposing the slightest weakness in any of their armour.

Four days of driving in the Pyrenees lay ahead. After a short run on the autovia to our muster point (a petrol station, naturally), we'll skirt along the valley floor before climbing to the peak of the Navarra region to take in the views and work our photographers' shutter fingers and our videographers' drone skills. We'll cross into France, too, before hot-footing it to the national parks further west to sample some British-like weather (it wouldn't be eCoty if we didn't have the traditional mid-test rain day).

And when the mountains and forests have given us our fill, we'll head to Circuito de Navarra for a day of high-speed lapping and blatant tyre destruction to keep the creatives happy and Dickie Meaden away from the buffet.