From a £23k bargain gem to the Swiss Army knife of family cars, The Sun Motor Awards 2024 winners revealed

IF you already person 1 of these cars, good done you. You chose well.

If you get 1 aft speechmaking this, you’ll convey maine later.

Because, to us, this batch is the champion retired determination close now. The apical of the top.

Little. Large. Budget. Big win. Petrol. Diesel. Electric.

We’ve enactment successful a shift.

We’ve covered the lot.

Allow maine to present you to the worthy winners of The Sun Motor Awards 2024.

Let’s commencement with the large prize — and a car that needs nary introduction.

The £23k petrol Mini Cooper, heavy refreshed for 2024, is hands-down our favourite caller bargain from our caput and heart.

It’s had a large glow-up connected the aged one, without a noticeable terms increase, and erstwhile does that ever happen?

Classier wrong and out, with a little is much approach, and that meal plate-sized touchscreen carries the aforesaid cutting-edge tech arsenic a £100k Beemer.

Mega amusive to drive, arsenic it ever has been. Even if you’re stuck connected the M1 you tin amuse yourself with a crippled of Uno.

The icing connected the barroom is that Mini is simply a homegrown hero.

German gaffers, yes — but the engines are made astatine Hams Hall, the assemblage panels successful Swindon, and the full happening is enactment unneurotic astatine Oxford.

British engineering astatine its best. The arsenic superb Mini Cooper Electric volition beryllium built astatine Oxford from 2026.

Special prizes next . . . 

The Legend Award goes to the VW Golf. No words needed for this 1 either.

It’s inactive present aft 50 years due to the fact that it is inactive the champion astatine what it does.

Dependable. Classless. Beautifully engineered.

The Dream Car Award goes to the Aston Martin Vantage V8.

One 100 per cent gorgeous.

Race-car thrills combined with a lush, tech-rich cabin.

Aston Martin is truthful blistery close present adjacent Taylor Swift sings astir them.

Now for immoderate much mundane heroes.

Dacia’s £23k Duster 4x4 is our Value Car of the Year.

Proper mechanical 4WD with precocious crushed clearance and onslaught angles, chunky tyres and 5 thrust modes.

Winter proof. Looks ace.

Yours from £149 a month. Incredible.

That’s a hat-trick for Dacia, by the way, Jogger triumphed successful ‘22 and Spring past year. Keep the trophy.

The Swiss Army weapon of household cars

The dinky Kia Picanto wins Small Car of the Year. Simple. Fun. Pennies to run.

Everything you privation from a tiny car. Even the cheapest Picanto 2 astatine £15,595 has duplicate screens, Apple CarPlay, reversing camera and satnav. If it fits your life, you’ll emotion a Picanto.

Kia besides picked up the Small SUV/Crossover prize for the hugely awesome EV3.

Quite perchance the tipping constituent for families wondering whether to spell electrical next.

The large artillery mentation astatine £36k genuinely nudges 375 miles.

Much the aforesaid terms and scope arsenic a petrol car. Except EV3’s Tardis-like compartment kills similarly-priced petrol cars.

Skoda’s Kodiaq is the Swiss Army weapon of household cars.

Lots of utile tech

Five seats oregon seven. Front-wheel thrust oregon AWD.

Petrol, diesel oregon plug-in hybrid. Vast boot. Lots of utile tech.

From £36k. No brainer, this one. Kodiaq is our Large SUV of the Year.

Now we travel to Renault, a triple victor with the Scenic (Family Car) and Renault 5 (Electric Car), arsenic good arsenic taking location our coveted Manufacturer prize.

The electric-only Scenic conscionable works. The kids volition beryllium blessed successful the backmost and the scope is amended than Renault’s ain figures.

The retro-inspired R5 is simply a fabulous small happening astatine a truly punchy price.

It’s going to triumph a bucketload of awards from glossy car mags.

If you’re not acceptable for electric, effort a Clio oregon a Captur. Further impervious that Renault has got its mojo back.

Now for Hot Hatch of the Year. Audi S3. Ooof.

It’s a lower, faster, grippier mentation of the A3 and small member to the supercar-slaying RS3.

Quattro AWD, 333hp, armfuls of entertainment.

As for Van of the Year, who else? Ford.

The mega-selling Transit Custom is next-level good.

Much improved compartment and cargo country and the bread-and-butter 2-litre diesel — made successful Dagenham — present comes with intelligent AWD. So you tin present spell much places with it.

Sadly Jeremy Clarkson, Hero of the Year, couldn’t marque the awards astatine The Sun’s London HQ tonight, but helium did archer me: “Really atrocious I can’t beryllium there. I virtually americium retired of the state — and adjacent if I wasn’t retired of the country, I’d beryllium successful the countryside with my limb up an animal. Such is beingness these days.”

And immoderate aboriginal 2025 contenders...

HANG on, Dacia has gone upmarket? Yes, but inactive successful a Dacia way.

This big-daddy SUV, called Bigster, arrives adjacent Spring from £27k.

Built-in cooler box.

Big solid opening sunroof.

Arkamys 3D dependable system. Wireless telephone charging. Electric tailgate.

Not precisely the “essentials” we’re utilized to from Dacia but the benignant of instrumentality drivers expect from this size of motor.

Bigster is 23cm longer than a Duster with a immense 667-litre boot.

Hybrid engines, manual and auto, front-wheel thrust and four-wheel drive. Promising.

We’ll study backmost erstwhile we effort it.

WE’RE present up to SIX Volkswagen SUVs opening with “T”.

This is Tayron, pronounced Tie-Ron, a seven-seater that slots betwixt Touareg and Tiguan and replaces the aged Tiguan Allspace.

Out March. Petrol. Diesel. Plug-in hybrid.

Can you sanction the different “T” cars?

OK, I’ll archer you. Taigo. T-Cross. T-Roc.

GET acceptable to beryllium inundated with a load of low-cost EVs from the likes of Dacia, Citroen, Fiat, Renault, BYD, Leapmotor and Hyundai implicit the adjacent year.

Hyundai has the leap connected astir of them with Inster, a four-seat micro SUV that’s earnestly well-equipped from £23,495.

Finance from £249 a month. Out December.

SORRY. Too late.

All 399 copies of the £2million McLaren W1 sold immediately.

Which isn’t precisely astonishing erstwhile you see W1 follows successful the instrumentality tracks of the legendary F1 and P1 arsenic McLaren’s 3rd “1” car.

With an epic V8 hybrid punching retired 1,275hp and Formula 1-inspired crushed effect aero, W1 is the hardest and fastest road-legal Macca ever.

Again, hardly surprising.

It rockets from 0-124mph successful 5.8 seconds with apical velocity constricted astatine 217mph.

I stake Lando’s got one.