If you want to do the fairest and most scrupulous job as a road tester, to reconfirm an impression or be sure about a relative strength or weakness, the best thing is simply to start over. Rinse and repeat. Come with a fresh set of senses and just give the cars on which you're about to pronounce one more chance.
The more important the pronouncement, of course, the stronger the case to hit the reset button. That's why, come the darkest winter months, the UK-based jurors for the Car of the Year award gather together the seven new cars that have made the competition's final shortlist – the result of an initial round of voting in the early autumn – and engage in a fresh set of back-to-back driving on the roads around Silverstone circuit.
They may be cars already quite well known to most of those voting, but back-to-back comparison on the most relevant kinds of roads never fails to be revealing. This year, it was my turn to attend on behalf of Autocar, and the shortlisted cars were the Citroën C5 Aircross, Dacia Bigster, Fiat Grande Panda, Kia EV4, Mercedes-Benz CLA, Renault 4 and Skoda Elroq.
If I tried to tell you something meaningful about all seven of them within the span of this column, I wouldn't do justice to any of them. So instead I'll focus on the three that I think are the likeliest to contend for the podium places when all of the votes are collected and the result is announced later this week.
Step forward, then, the CLA, Elroq and Grande Panda. Any one of them could be the 2026 Car of the Year winner.
The Mercedes because it seems to advance the art of the possible for the electric car, at least to some extent; the Fiat because it's a classic COTY favourite, representing the sorts of values that the competition's jurors have responded to so many times over the years; and the Skoda just because it's such a singularly well-rounded, versatile and pleasant family car for a reasonable price.
We road tested the EQ electric version recently, and I confess that I was a little bit surprised that the range and efficiency numbers it posted weren't better. That might be something to do with the particular speeds at which we happen to benchmark efficiency, though.
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As ugly as the CLA is, at least it is distinctively ugly. Take the badges off the rest and you would not recognise them.
I think, Elroq aside, that the rest of the contenders are all quite clearly from their brands, even with badges off. The Panda and R4 especially are easily recognisable. The Bigster, C5 and EV4 have the current styling of others in their brand's line up, and all have quite distinct styling aspects throughout.