About the World Car Awards

It is the mission of the World Car Awards and its global jurors to recognize, reward and inspire automotive excellence, leadership and innovation in a rapidly changing automotive industry on a global scale.

To that end we test drive and evaluate new or fully redesigned vehicles that are for sale in multiple markets on more than one continent each year, voting to determine the World Car Design, World Luxury Car, World Performance Car, World Urban Car, and World Car of the Year. Full vehicle eligibility requirements and our annual timeline can be found via the links in the menu above.

Now in their 21st year, the annual World Car Awards are the number one awards program in the world for the 12th consecutive year in terms of media reach and analysis of forty-seven top global markets in AITASTIC's 2024 media report.

The awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace.

The inaugural jurors were: Mike Allen (USA), Peter Burgess (UK), Charley Chae (Korea), JooSik Choi (Korea), Robert Collin (Sweden), Matt Davis (Italy), Xia Dong (China), Ken Gibson (UK), Greg Kable (Germany), Jorge Koechlin (USA/Peru), Peter Lyon (Japan), Marco Marelli (Italy), John McCormick (USA), Maciej Pertynski (Poland), John Rettie (USA), Hormazd Sorabjee (India), and Juergen Zoellter (Germany)

The awards are intended to complement, not compete, with existing national and regional Car of the Year programs.

Diversity

As a result of our long-standing commitment to balance and diversity, the World Car Awards is proud that our jurors represent the most diverse group of automotive journalists in the world reaching a global audience of 315 million.

The World Car Awards has a long-standing commitment to continually grow our juror diversity so as to better reach different audiences across the broadest possible global spectrum.

In addition, the World Car Awards strives to ensure global balance amongst the jurors so that no one region dominates the votes and outcome.

A list of our 100+ jurors can be found here on our web site as well as the qualifying criteria for becoming a member of the jury panel for a one-year term.