WHERE WERE YOU?

Surprised at some of the absentees from eCoty 2025? Here's why your favourites were AWOL

- STUART GALLAGHER

DESPITE A LARGER THAN ANTICIPATED FIELD FOR THIS YEAR'S eCoty, there were always going to be cars left behind that might have been considered shoo-ins for inclusion.

Chief amongst these is BMW's new M5, a car for which we had high expectations.

Yet while it has impressed to an extent, there have been heavy caveats in both saloon and Touring forms. Yes, it’s monumentally powerful with over 700bhp, and stupendously quick too, but it's also aloof, remote and, unless driven absolutely at its limit with everything wound up as high as it will go, generally inspires respect rather than adoration.

A number of potential candidates fell foul of international launch calendar timings, hence why Ford's Mustang GTD, Ferrari's F80 and 296 Speciale, Porsche's new 911 Turbo S and Lamborghini's Temerario are no-shows. So too VW's Golf GTI 50th Edition, which we've driven briefly in prototype form and which shows promise, but won't be available in production form until Q1 2026.