Cars of the Year 2022 – Singapore-Style Intro : Down the Rabbit-Hole [COTY2022]

Surbana Jurong Campus, Singapore - By now, long-time readers should be familiar with our ‘Singapore-Style’ Cars of the Year format, especially given it’s been more than a decade since we first bucked the trend by eschewing categories, category winners and a single overall winner. (Click on the models below to jump straight to their individual reviews)

From the outset, we wanted to avoid the well-travelled, ‘more of the same’ binary route that has been trodden to death.

So what does it mean to be a part of TopGear Singapore’s “Cars of the Year – Singapore-Style”?

If a car is included, it’s in – no votes, no committees, no categories, no people’s choice, no participation prizes and most crucially, no ‘one car to rule them all’ – hence the use of ‘Cars’ in the title.

Like so many other cultural indulgences, cars are as emotionally-charged, evocative and divisive a topic as food, art, music, movies and literature.

Be it nangka, durian or mangoes, nasi lemak, chicken rice or omakase, old masters, abstract or surrealist, sci-fi, horror or Dostoevsky, or even Reggae, Grindcore or Classical, everybody has at least a few favourites (or more) for the things that ‘spark joy’ for them.

Most importantly, they’d be hard-pressed to pick just one of the lot that tickles their fancy… and why should they?

Think of this annual round-up as a 'dream garage' exercise where these are the cars deserving of a space in an enthusiast's garage!

Any one, two, three or more of our eight gathered companions could find homes in a petrolhead’s garage, especially if your aspirations and bank balance know no limits.

And for most of us who are limited by our pockets, well, dreaming is always free and besides, life is too short for boring cars!

A single, best-of-the-best ‘winner’ may be easy to quantify (albeit harder to qualify) and while this basic, binary concept helps bait the clicks, it has little real-world relevance, because that’s not how the real world populated with thinking, breathing humans is wired… least of all for those of us who care about cars as more than mere A-to-B transport.

The ‘best’ anyone can hope for is a greatest hits mixtape, a degustation menu, an anthology compendium or an eclectic cabinet of curiosities that collectively tickles the fancy of the audience and that’s just what we compile in every edition of TopGear Singapore’s “Cars of the Year – Singapore-Style”.

So instead of a one-answer punchline to the question, “Who won?”, we assemble the brightest star cars to dazzle us from the qualifying year, which starts and ends with the Chinese New Year.

This is a period of renewal as one Chinese Zodiac animal makes way for another and an occasion of huge celebration in Singapore.

In this case, the agile Rabbit takes the place of the ferocious Tiger, with ‘agility’ setting the tone for this instalment of Cars of the Year – Singapore-Style.

PHOTOS Zotiq Visuals

The 2022 Hit List (Click on car model to read the review)

1) Audi RS3 Sedan

2) BMW M4 CSL

3) Ferrari 296 GTB

4) Kia EV6 Dual-Motor

5) McLaren Artura

6) Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS

7) Skoda Kodiaq 2.0 TSI 4x4 RS

8) Toyota GR86 2.4 6MT

ABOUT SURBANA JURONG CAMPUS

Designed to meet Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Platinum (Super Low Energy) building certification, the Surbana Jurong Campus is the group’s new global ‘work-live-play’ HQ, a 68,915 sqm development that pushes the boundaries of sustainable design in both construction and operation.

The Campus is intended to pilot a range of sustainable solutions, which includes on-site solar panels capable of generating over 300MWh a year, a 100 per cent green area replacement, as well as a self-shading facade that maximises natural light, yet reduces solar heat gain.

The Jurong Innovation District (or JID for short) the Campus is located in is a 600-hectare manufacturing, business and technology hub that encompasses the NTU and JTC’s CleanTech Park, as well as the upcoming Bulim, Bahar and Tengah areas.

When completed, the on-campus EV charging hub – a collaboration between SP Group and Surbana Jurong – is expected to be the largest in Southeast Asia. An initial mix of nine fast and slow charging points will be installed at the launch of the Surbana Jurong Campus, but this is expected to increase to 36 by the end of 2023.

The installation pace of subsequent chargers will depend on prevailing market demand in Singapore for EVs, but the 250 parking lots at the Campus already feature the required electrical infrastructure, so these can be fully converted to charging lots if/when the need arises.