Cape Town - The 2017 South African Car of the year winner will be revealed at a gala event in Johannesburg, Gauteng tonight (March 15).
Following a rigorous elimination process, the ten finalists were put through their paces late in 2016, and then again through a second round of testing earlier in 2017.
Mazda South Africa, however, withdrew its CX-3 from the competition.
Stay tuned to Wheels24 to find out which finalist will be crowned this year's Car of the Year (COTY).
The finalists
The finalists for 2017 are:
• Audi A4
• Honda Civic
• Hyundai Tucson
• Jaguar F-Pace
• Opel Astra
• Renault Kadjar
• Toyota Fortuner
• Volkswagen Tiguan
• Volkswagen Passat
Explaining the process
Choosing the winner is no easy task and the judging panel had their work cut out when voting on a winner.
The judges are all full members of the SA Guild of Motor Journalists (SAGMJ) and have an allocated amount of points they can award to the vehicles. At the end of the entire voting process the scores are counted and the car with the most votes will be the COTY.
To best explain the judging process, SAGMJ and COTY chairman, Bernard Hellberg Jnr. gives an insight to the process and how the events unfold.