Celebrating its 46th year, the 60 judges of Japan Car of the Year convened at Bosch’s recently established Japan headquarters in Center Kita, Yokohama City to select the country’s best cars of 2025-2026. In addition to the jurors, some 41 representatives from the country’s most influential automotive and lifestyle publications, who run the Japan COTY organisation, and dozens of car industry executives gathered to witness the vote-counting and prize-giving ceremony.

In a major change to previous voting methods, the Japan COTY organization decided to employ a new Formula 1 style voting system for 2025-26 in which judges had to allocate their votes across all of the top 10 finalists. In the same way as F1 race winners receive 25 points, each juror was required to give their best car 25 votes, their second best 18 votes, their third best 15 votes, fourth 12, fifth 10, sixth 8, seventh 6, eighth 4, ninth 2 and tenth 1 vote. The VW ID. Buzz, which finished in fifth place and ranked the highest among imported vehicles, picked up the Import Car of the Year award as well as the Best Design award.

In early polling, the Forester jumped to an early lead with the Prelude holding a close second. When all votes were counted, the Forester came home with 1149 votes, the Prelude 1076 votes, Toyota Crown (Estate) 654, Nissan Leaf 622, VW ID.Buzz 578, Hyundai Inster 477, BMW 2-Series 416, Peugeot 3008 393, Suzuki eVitara 357 and the Daihatsu Move finishing with 338 votes. After receiving his COTY trophy, the Forester’s chief engineer Katsuro Tadaki commented, “In addition to creating the highly lauded new strong hybrid powertrain, we finely tuned the car’s safety systems, packaging, handling, comfort levels, ride quality and cost performance to make the Forester the best in class.”

In addition, Porsche Japan—in the midst of celebrating its 30th anniversary in the country, saw its 911 Carrera GTS capture the Technology Award of the Year for its powerful new T-Hybrid powertrain which combines a new 3.6-liter boxer engine with an integrated electric motor for enhanced performance and minimal turbo lag, while the Porsche Experience Center took home the Japan COTY’s organizing committee’s special award for its ‘coexistence with the local community’ as well as its efforts to revitalize the Kisarazu region of Chiba. A second special award was given to the Super Endurance Organization (STMO) for its work in prototype vehicles working towards the realization of a carbon-neutral society, in addition to its efforts to open up a new stage of international exchange, including a demo run of NASCAR in Japan, a symbol of American motorsports, and promote cultural exchange between Japan and the United States through motorsport.