PCOTY LEGENDS - 1996-2022

HOW THE ANNUAL QUEST FOR AUSTRALIA'S BEST PERFORMANCE CARS HAS DELIVERED A ROLL CALL OF EXCELLENCE

- CAMERON KIRBY

POWER PACT. THE screaming headline from MOTOR'S February 1996 was superimposed above six of the year's best performance cars. This would represent the first introduction for readers to what would become MOTOR'S blue riband event, Performance Car of the Year.

In the here and now, MOTOR without PCOTY seems inconceivable, but 26 years ago the loss of the annual Best Car Awards was similarly unbelievable. The awards had run for 13 years, carrying over from the Modern Motor era of the magazine. But like a young adult finding their feet away from home, MOTOR of the '90s was transitioning away from its traditional roots. Best Car was dead, and in its place arrived PCOTY. As far as introductions go, the initial field was stacked with metal desirable even by today's standards - BMW E36 328i, Honda NSX, HSV GTS Blueprint, Mazda RX-7 SP, Mercedes-Benz AMG C36 and the big daddy Porsche 911 Turbo.

In his Ed's Letter for that month, the man in the big chair, Graham Smith, spelt out why MOTOR was letting go of its old ways, and set the magazine onto a path it has followed ever since. No longer tied to the mainstream, MOTOR was now about going fast and having fun doing it. PCOTY was a statement of intent. "Our new Performance Car of the Year award clearly spells out the view that MOTOR is the magazine for those who want more horsepower in their motoring," Smith wrote.

From the field of six, it was the Porsche that claimed outright honours. The 993 Turbo wrote history, not just in being the first PCOTY winner, but in setting a trend that would set a template, often to the chagrin of other manufacturers. The pull quote in that '96 issue of MOTOR proclaims "the 911 Turbo didn't just win, it pulverised the opposition". You'd be able to cut that out and paste it into many other Porsche victories spread across the subsequent 25 PCOTY runnings.