North American Car of the Year

Source: Car of the Year (Show #2001) on Autoline This Week

Will it be the Honda Civic? Maybe the Chevrolet Malibu? Or possibly the Mazda MX-5 Miata? Yes, it’s that time of year again to highlight the possible winner of the North American Car of the Year. Joining John McElroy to discuss these cars and more are fellow NACTOY jurors Kirk Bell from Motor Authority, Mark Phelan from the Detroit Free Press and Mike Austin from Autoblog.​

Both the 2016 Prius and Volt-2 are out of the competition in favor of the Honda Civic. I'm OK with this as we don't need to have Prius vs Volt-2 advocates brag-whinning. My comment in Autoline Daily was:

The Civic was the ‘Putney Swope’ choice that avoided a Prius vs Volt decision. In effect, the Civic is the compromise candidate and not a bad choice.

As for VW buy-back, I’m pretty sure the non-SCR equipped cars, the ~380,000, EA 189 2.0L diesels are impossible to retrofit an SCR.

The ones with SCR can probably pass with new software BUT an MPG hit. Not good, MPG can be solved without buying back the car (aka., Kia, Ford, Hyundai.)​

Yes, I realize 'Putney Swope' is an obscure movie from my wasted youth. Still, there is Google. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson