#testfest

Mazda, General Motors and Kia are all happy north of the border today, as the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) handed out its categorical car of the year awards to these brands and more. 

Following just after the annual Texas Auto Writers Association announced their top vehicle pics for 2010, our brothers to the North have just done the same. After several days of testing and grading 150 new vehicles the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) has announced its top picks in 11 different vehicle classes.

General Motors took home a total of three awards with the new Chevy Cruze taking the award in the Best New Small Car over $21,000; the Buick Regal taking home Best New Family Car Over $30,000 and the Cadillac CTS-V Coupe being awarded Best New Sports / Performance Car. Volkswagen and Ford took home the second highest number of wins, with the Jetta TDI announced as the Best New Family Car Under $30,000; while the new Touareg finishes as Best New SUV/CUV over $50,000. The Ford Fiesta won for Best Small Car Under $21,000 while the new 2011 Edge was awarded Best SUV/CUV under $50,000.

The overall winners for Canadian Car and Truck of the Year will be announced at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto in February.

See after the jump for all the winners in their respective categories:

A recent report suggests the Canadian Car of the Year Awards may be fixed. CarChat Editor Michael Banovsky, citing an unnamed but trustworthy source, is reporting that members of the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC), were told of a way to skew the results of the annual Canadian Car of The Year awards.

The plan has allegedly been in place for years and involves discounting perfect scores. The way it works is that if a journalist feels a car is the best in one attribute, they can give it a score of 10, which will then be ignored. This stems from the idea that “no vehicle is perfect.” Apparently the rule has been in place for several years, but only this year were journalists told of the plan. It would then seem that not all journalists were “in” on the plan in years past.

The conspiracy does seem a bit much, but arguably the best evidence that such vote rigging has been going on is the fact that in 2008 AJAC awarded the Lexus IS-F the top spot in the Sports Performance category, despite it being up against (what we have to admit are obviously superior rivals), the BMW M3 and Nissan GT-R.

AutoGuide contacted AJAC for a comment but as of the posting of this story we have received no reply.

CarChat is also reporting that several journalists, not wanting to participate in the scheme, have decided to now rank “perfect” vehicles a 9.9 out of 10.

AJAC just recently released the list of nominees for Canadian Car of the Year and Canadian Utility Vehicle of the year, after 70 of Canada’s “elite” automotive journalists spent the week testing a long list of 156 vehicles at the organizations annual Test Fest event. The 12 class winners will now be submitted for the 2010 Canadian Car of the Year or the 2010 Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year, which will be announced at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto, Ontario on February 11. The list of winners is included after the jump.

[Source: CarChat]