MUDFEST PICKS ITS WINNER

We can see some pretty extreme winter weather up here in the Pacific Northwest, including rain, snow, ice and our favorite substance – mud! People out here really need capable four‑wheel drive vehicles, writes Jeff Zurschmeide, President of NWAPA, the Northwest Automotive Press Association.

It's for this reason that 16 years ago, the journalists in our group started Mudfest to decide on and award, the Northwest Sport Utility Vehicle of the Year.

Sport‑utility vehicles are a mainstay of the Pacific Northwest automotive market. The journalists from this region, which encompasses all of Oregon, Wash. and British Columbia, are among the most knowledgeable and vocal critics of this segment.

For this year’s Northwest SUV of the Year award, we picked the 2010 Range Rover Sport Supercharged. It also scooped the Best Luxury SUV title, while the 2011 Land Rover LR4 took the Best Off‑Road SUV accolade.

In judging these awards, we pride ourselves on our extremely thorough testing. This year, we spent two long days in Vancouver, Wash., basing ourselves at the Heathman Lodge, to take a close look at the new crop of 2011 SUVs. We traveled to a nearby ranch and used the country roads in the area for on‑road evaluation and then used an old Motocross course at the ranch to test the SUVs over lots of steep inclines and descents. A track through the forest gave us the muddy bits.

The 20 newest SUV and CUV (Crossover‑ Utility Vehicle), we assembled were divided into four categories – Affordable, Family, Luxury and Off‑road – with the highest‑scoring vehicle being declared the SUV of the Year.

Our 20 NWAPA members who took part in the two‑days of testing were definitely impressed by the Range Rover Sport’s combination of luxury, supercharged V8 performance and immense capability both on and off‑road.

Of course, it’s not the first time the Range Rover Sport has taken home top awards at Mudfest. It was voted SUV of the Year in 2008 and judged Best Off‑roader in 2007. With Land Rover's history of consistently being a top contender in many of our categories, we look forward to seeing what the brand's 2011 MY line up has to offer!