ECOTY 2022

It's been a tremendous twelve months for new peformance cars, but which among them is the greatest of all? Our annual epic test with the very strongest contenders will provide the definitive answer. So please take your seats and buckle up for evo Car of the Year 2022.

- STUART GALLAGHER

HAS THERE EVER BEEN ANOTHER YEAR LIKE it? A year when so many mid-engined supercars and sports cars have been launched and/or updated that we could fill an entire evo Car of the Year shortlist with them? We very nearly did, too...

We had eight on the list and five made it to the north of England for a week of driving on one of the toughest UK-based eCoty routes we've devised. The three that didn't make it weren't victims of a brutal judgement cut made by your judges, rather they were all tripped up by their respective manufacturers.

Chevrolet tried damned hard to get us a C8 Corvette Stingray. Their UK press demo is in the country (see issue 303) and it's a model that started to eat away under our skin the moment we first drove it way back when in the US. Unfortunately, at the eleventh hour Chevrolet delivered the news that it couldn't deliver a car in time. They were as gutted as we were. Still, there's always next year and the Z06...

Lotus will be looking towards 2023's eCoty too. Its Emira was a shoo-in from the moment we drove a prototype in March and thought 'that's it'. With a final layer of production polish it would be the first Lotus contender for half a decade. It went downhill from there. The launch car provided in May was a mismatch of specs a customer couldn't buy, leaving a cloud over our verdict. Factor in parts and manufacturer delays throughout the summer and customer deliveries pushed back, and at the eleventh and a half hour Lotus's distraught PR broke the news that an Emira couldn't be made available. There's always next year for the AMG-powered version.