The top finalists for the World Car of the Year, World Performance Car, World Green Car and World Car Design of the Year awards have been announced at the Geneva Motor Show.

The overall winners in all categories will be declared at the New York International Auto Show on Thursday, March 28, 2013.

World Car of the Year

From an initial entry list of forty-two new vehicles from all over the world, then a short list of ten finalists, the top contenders for the overall 2013 World Car of the Year title have been revealed, they are;

• Mercedes-Benz A-Class
• Porsche Boxster / Cayman
• Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ / Toyota 86 / GT 86
• Volkswagen Golf

This is the second consecutive year that Volkswagen is in the top three position and the fourth time since 2009.  The Volkswagen UP! was the 2012 World Car of the Year.

To be eligible for the overall World Car award, the candidates must become available for sale on at least two continents during the period beginning January 1, 2012 and ending May 30, 2013.

Vehicles are selected and voted on by an international jury panel comprised of sixty-six top-level automotive journalists from twenty-three countries around the world.

World Performance Car

The top three finalists for the 2013 World Performance Car award are, the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, Porsche Boxster / Cayman and the combined entry Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ / Toyota 86 / GT 86.  

This is the seventh time out of eight that Porsche has secured a top three position.  The Porsche 911 won last’s year’s World Performance Car title.  It is the second time for Ferrari.   The Ferrari 458 Italia won the 2011 World Performance Car award.

The World Performance Car award must demonstrate a specific and overt sports/performance orientation while satisfying the same availability criteria as for the overall World Car of the Year award.

Entrants may be chosen from that list of eligible vehicles, or they may be newly introduced variants that satisfy the same criteria, but are derived from existing rather than brand-new models. In all cases, they must have a minimum annual production rate of five-hundred (500) vehicles.

World Green Car

Due to the complexity of some of the 'green' technologies, five green experts were appointed by the World Car Steering Committee to extensively review all documentation and specs associated with each candidate.  They then create a short-list of finalists for review by the sixty-six (66) jurors in their second round of voting in February. The five green experts were in alphabetical order:  Phil Berg (USA - PopularMechanics.com),

Richard Bremner (U.K. - cleangreencars.co.uk), Claus-Peter Koeth (Germany - automobil-industrie.de), Tadashi Tateuchi (Japan – Japan Electric Vehicle Club) and John Voelcker (USA - GreenCarReports.com).

The sixty-six member jury chose the following top three finalists for the 2013 World Green Car award: the Renault Zoe, the Tesla Model S and the Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid.

World Car Design of the Year

Cars eligible for the 2013 World Car Design of the Year award are taken from the list of World Car candidates or they may be included as a stand-alone entry provided the vehicle is introduced and available for sale in at least one major market during the period beginning January 1, 2012 and ending May 30th, 2013.

A design panel consisting of five world design experts was asked to first review each candidate, and then establish a short-list of recommendations for the jurors.  The design experts were:  Masatsugu Arimoto (Japan), Silvia Baruffaldi (Italy), Gernot Bracht (Germany), Sam Livingstone (UK) and Tom Matano (USA).  Jurors then voted on the experts' recommendations.

The top three design finalists as chosen by the jurors are: the Aston Martin Vanquish, the Jaguar F-Type and the Mazda6. Aston Martin previously won the 2011 World Car Design of the Year award for the Aston Martin Rapide.