The jury of the prestigious German Car of the Year 2026 (GCOTY) award announced the winners in the five traditional categories, and the results were surprising – not a single German-made model was among them. This is the first time in the history of the competition, which has been held since 1970.
The list of winners included cars from Romania, South Korea, the USA and the Czech Republic, and the name of the winner of the main title – “Car of the Year in Germany” – will be announced on November 17.
The evaluation was carried out in categories divided by the cost of the cars:
- The winner in the Budget class (up to 25,000 euros) was the Dacia Bigster
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- Among the compact models (25,000–40,000 euros), the best was recognized as the Skoda Elroq;
- In the premium segment (40,000–70,000 euros), the first place was taken by the Hyundai Ioniq 9;
- In the luxury category (over 70,000 euros), the leader was the Cadillac Vistiq;
- The title of “Sports Car of the Year” was received by the Lucid Air Sapphire.
Thus, from Of this year’s five winners, four were crossovers, and all of them were electric vehicles. For comparison, last year the results were the opposite: the main prize then went to the BMW 5 Series, which was also recognized as the best in the premium class, the Porsche 911 GTS became the sports car of the year, and the Audi Q6 won in the electric category, which is not represented this year.
