Behind the scenes of Performance Car of the Year 2022

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. If there was a MOTOR Performance Car of the Year coat of arms, this would be the motto.

And as the skies over Oakleigh grew angry only the day before the start of PCOTY 2022, it looked like the former part of that saying would set the theme for this year’s event. But how do you prepare for a demonic storm cell descending on Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, aiming its gumball-sized hail right where a majority of our test fleet had been assembled?

The answer is simple – scramble every able-bodied person in the office and pack 11 cars into a warehouse that, under normal circumstances, struggles to accommodate six. If you ever needed proof that the MOTOR team is handy behind the wheel, look not to the race track and lap times, just ask to see their reverse parking in a hurry.

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You’d be forgiven for thinking a weirdly localised hail assault on the eve of MOTOR’s biggest week might have been an omen foretelling five days of hell. But as I write this, all 18 cars that made up the largest PCOTY fleet to date are back with their respective owners, all six judges still have their driver’s licences, and MOTOR magazine has not been banned from the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.

What follows is why Performance Car of the Year 2022 will be remembered for all the right reasons.

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Despite the climatic assault, all our cars depart the day-one rendezvous with their glazing intact. This period of latency and calm clearly sat uncomfortably with Trent who, on the cruise to Gippsland, expertly used the Subaru BRZ’s pin-sharp handling to seek out an airborne stone and fire it through the front pane. Or maybe it was an accident as he claims. Either way, the BRZ had a crack that was growing faster than a plumber’s butt cleft and was quite possibly the first of the 2022 model in the country to require dealership attention (thanks Leongatha Subaru).

The BRZ, through no fault of its own, might have been the first to temporarily take to the sidelines but at least it had turned up. Somewhere back in Melbourne, GMSV technicians were trying to find the cause of an engine-check light that was preventing a Corvette joining in on the fun.

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When the car turned up at the end of day one with software freshly updated, the mysterious light was extinguished and, like the hail, thankfully didn’t return.

The first day saw temperatures into the mid-30s, but we’re not talking those wonderful Gippsland summer days where a dry breeze wafts from the Bass Strait. It was a savage, airless day with no escape from the beating sun – unless, of course, you’re a judge.

Comfortable under their fleet of wheeled parasols, the panel of five (and Luffy) had already started the process of road evaluation, cutting loops of epic driving roads. But when you’re browsing the world-class images of six men looking really cool, spare a thought for the people behind the cameras who frequently endure conditions only marginally more comfortable than the surface of a comet.

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Danger and discomfort is all part of the job for the photography team, but there was one person even more uncomfortable than the shooters at this year’s event – me.

While the snappers enjoyed luxuries like hats, sunglasses and long sleeves to protect them from the elements, presenting a Car of the Year video allows none of that. When you watch the finished films, try to spot the transition from belting sunshine, 35 degrees and trying to hide the gushing forehead sweat, to howling wind, rain and hypothermia. It wasn’t easy.

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With the lenses preoccupied by six key car nuts and one whinging pom, it’s easy to forget that pulling together the biggest PCOTY in recent memory required a large team and, with the exception of just two rooms, the entire Coal Creek Motel was booked out to us.

The atmosphere at our accommodation just outside Korumburra was somewhere between high school camp horror movie and Gumball Rally without the glamour, but after a 17-hour day-one, the porch lights were flicking out not to the sound of tittering and tinnies, but instant snoring.

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The next day, rain and cold had displaced the balmy climes of the night before, but the 20-strong team was ready to roll bright and early – except customer care guru Vin who seemed incapable of emerging before the penultimate car had departed.

At least Mike Stevens had some diplomatic words to offer when he finally arrived back at our base in Loch for the day. “You took all that time to get ready and your hair still looks shit?” he lovingly observed.

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As a whole we were on best behaviour for the locals and our informal hosts.
The tiny community of Loch is home to two excellent cafes, a bowls club and a distillery. Inevitably, the sound of almost 5000kW and 93 cylinders running into town each day started to draw attention and our fleet became an unofficial motorshow. By the end of the third day we bid farewell to Loch and set a course to Phillip Island.

At 8:30am the team reconvened at the entrance to the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit from our various linen-less Airbnbs dotted around Smiths Beach, and the sense of excitement was palpable. Anyone who knows Phillip Island will be familiar with its curious climate which has absolutely no relation to the weather anywhere else in Victoria, but over the next two days, the Island started to shine brighter than I’ve ever witnessed.

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It’s rare to see such an eclectic and diverse collection of cars lapping such an intensely beautiful track, but to do it behind closed gates and with a group of people I’m lucky enough to call both friends and colleagues is to realise a dream.

It was encouraging to see an EV joining the ranks in the form of Porsche’s Taycan, but its attendance highlighted the void in infrastructure. Thankfully, the MOTOR team welcomes back the ephemeral but absolutely irreplaceable James and Stu and each evening the duo would disappear off to Moe to charge the Taycan’s 900-volt battery.

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One day the car arrived with 1 per cent remaining in the ‘tank’ – a demonstration of logistics almost as impressive as the Huracán, which was returned without a single kay remaining of our mileage limit.

Perhaps the only awkward moment arose during a polite chat between judges when race-ace Warren Luff was recounting fond memories blowing up Ford Mustangs, including one highly strung Harrop supercharged example at Winton.

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“That thing detonated big time,” giggled Luffy before Premcar engineering director Bernie Quinn piped up “That was my car!”.

Let’s not forget however, that behind all the fun and excitement, MOTOR Performance Car of the Year is a systematic process of evaluation and an assessment of objectives with genuinely scientific results.

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Yet, when it came to the most critical group shot at the end of the final day – the most complicated rolling shot we have ever attempted with all 18 cars moving on track simultaneously observed by two tracking cars, Dave still hadn’t learnt how to put the Lamborghini into Drive.

Yes there were challenges and a collective sense of relief when PCOTY disbanded and trickled away from the island, but through the adversity and technical complexity of this year’s event, Performance Car of the Year didn’t just prevail, it triumphed.

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So perhaps the words of Lee Child that we began with don’t fairly summarise the PCOTY mantra, and a different motto might be a better fit for our most challenging but exciting week of the motoring calendar.

Non enim cursus sed vitae urna – not for the circuit, but for life we drive.

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