We’ve all seen the cliché family going on vacation with a heavy caravan hitched to a car that was certainly not designed to tow one.
It was with that family in mind that the UK’s Caravan Club organized the first Towcar of the Year award in 1983. The illustrious winner that year was the Citroën BX 16 TRS, a very angular medium-sized sedan equipped with Citroën’s hydropneumatic suspension.
All walks of life from the automotive world have won the award since. The competition for the 2012 model year just ended and the winner is the Volkswagen Jetta equipped with a 2.0 TDI and a DSG transmission.
This year, 16 automakers submitted a grand total of 30 different models for testing. Only cars that were launched or that underwent a major mechanical redesign in the year prior to the contest taking place are eligible.
In addition to those, every year the previous winner is invited to come back. For the 2012 edition, the returning champion was the Skoda Superb station wagon.
The contest is split up into five categories. The Jetta won first place in the under £25,000 ($39,000) category; the Skoda Superb station wagon equipped with the same drivetrain as the Jetta won the £25,000 – £32,000 ($39,000 to $49,000) category; the Volkswagen Touareg 3.0 V6 TDI won both the over £32,000 ($49,000) and the over 4,000 pound All-Wheel Drive category; and finally, the Volvo V60 D5 AWD won the under 4,000 pound All-Wheel Drive category.
The competition takes place at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, England. The tests that the cars are put through range from acceleration and braking to steep hill starts. The 11 judges also look at how user-friendly the car’s tow hitch is. In all of the tests, the caravans are loaded to 85% of each car’s respective curb weight.
Volkswagen says that the Jetta equipped with the 138 horsepower 2.0 TDI can tow a maximum of 3,300 pounds.
