2016 Camaro Snubbed for North American Car of the Year

While the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro seemed like a shoe-in for the 2016 North American Car of the Year award, the recently announced list of finalists for the major award does not include the new Camaro – although General Motors still has a shot at the title.

The North American Car and Truck of the Year Jurors have announced their three finals for both the car and the truck/SUV class, and unbelievably, the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro is not on the list. The new Cadillac CT6 and the Chevrolet Volt were also trimmed from the short list so if GM wants to win their third NACOTY award in 4 years, they have to hope that the jury loves the new Chevy Malibu.

Car of the Year Finalists
The three finalists for the 2016 North American Car of the Year award are the Chevrolet Malibu, the Honda Civic and the Mazda Miata. While these are all fine vehicles, I am surprised that these three were picked as the best of the 10 cars from the short list, considering that there were some very good cars on that short list.

The 7 vehicles cut from the short list to the finalist group includes the Chevrolet Camaro, the BMW 7 Series, the Cadillac CT6, the Chevrolet Volt, the Kia Optima, the Nissan Maxima and the Toyota Prius. There are some serious heavy hitters on that list and I am pretty surprised to see the Camaro, the Cadillac, the Volt and the Prius all excluded.

The new Mazda Miata has been so well received that I would expect it to be the winner out of these three finalists, but I also thought that the Camaro had been as well received as any new car introduced in the past few months.

Truck of the Year Finalists
The three finalists for the 2016 North American Truck/SUV of the Year is less surprising, with the Honda Pilot, the Nissan Titan XD and the Volvo XC90 duking it out for the major award. The new Nissan Titan has been praised for being vastly improved, but really, how could it not be vastly better than the previous Titan?

In any case, the Titan has made a big name for itself with the introduction of a new Cummins diesel engine, so from the short list of 12, the Titan seemed like the early favorite. The Toyota Tacoma seemed poised to challenge the Titan, but the smaller Toyota didn’t make the final cut. The other vehicles cut from the short list include the Ford Edge, the Honda HRV, the Hyundai Tucson, the Jeep Renegade, the Kia Sorento, the new Lexus RX lineup, the Mazda CX3, the Tesla Model X and the Toyota Tacoma.

There are some big names on that list, but of the short list, the new Titan XD will almost certainly make the biggest splash in the North American market.

The 2016 North American Car and Truck of the Year winners will be announced in January at the 2016 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.