By Gary S. Vasilash

The finalists for the 2022 North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year awards were:

• Car: Honda Civic, Lucid Air, Volkswagen Golf R and Golf GTI
• Truck: Ford Maverick, Hyundai Santa Cruz, Rivian R1T
• Utility: Ford Bronco, Genesis GV70, Hyundai IONIQ 5

The vehicles were voted on by a group of 50 journalists who are located in the U.S. and Canada. They are staffers and freelancers, print, digital and broadcast workers.

To get to the nine they assessed eight cars, six trucks and nine utilities.

And that was winnowed down from 12 cars, 8 trucks and 18 utility vehicles.

So all of those vehicles and those 50 jurors means that during the past several months plenty of miles were racked up on odometers.

The winners were announced this morning.*

The ceremony literally had sealed results, which were tabulated and kept secret by Deloitte.

And when they were opened the results:

• Honda Civic (11^th generation)
• Ford Maverick (a new entry in what is arguably a new segment of small pickups)
• Ford Bronco (when accepting the award, Ford president Kumar Galhotra said that when developing the vehicle he heard from Bronco fans who said, “Don’t screw it up.”

The group has been doing this since 1994. Seems like they got it right.**

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*The presentation was made at an Automotive Press Association meeting in Detroit at Huntington Place. And during the presentation, the Detroit Auto Dealers Association announced that the next North American International Auto Show will be held September 14-25 at Huntington Place as well as in outdoor venues around Detroit.

**I’m a juror and so am not exactly unbiased about this.