2024 MotorTrend Performance Vehicle of the Year: The Finalists
One of these vehicles is the 2024 MotorTrend Performance Vehicle of the Year.
For the third iteration of our MotorTrend Performance Vehicle of the Year competition, we took 21 vehicles to the desert oasis of California’s Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, where we chuckwalla'ed them around the track and a special off-road course in order to cull the thundering herd. We whittled it down to a group of seven finalists that spanned the gamut from a wildly entertaining Korean EV to a thoroughbred Italian prancing horse to a bucking wild American stallion.
The goal after our time at the track was to take the measure of this magnificent seven on some of California’s amazingly entertaining roads, including desert byways and alpine passes, to extract more of what they’re all about in the context of our six PVOTY criteria (engineering excellence, value, performance of intended function, driver confidence and engagement, advancement. in design, and efficiency). This is the 'living with it' part of the program, where we fiddled with vehicle settings, attacked twisty roads and pavement imperfections, and otherwise enjoyed the finalists like most of their owners will.
As always, with any MotorTrend Of The Year event, there can be only one winner taking home the coveted Golden Calipers. See the rest of the nonfinalist field here, and find out what vehicle we picked on Monday, July 15!
More 2024 PVOTY: Winner | Contenders | Behind the Scenes
2023 PVOTY: Winner | Finalists | Contenders
2024 Acura Integra Type S
To drive the 2024 Acura Integra Type S is to love it. To drive it on a track, a back road, and in traffic is to fully understand and truly appreciate it.
Failing to fully shakedown the Integra Type S leads to predictable and understandable questions. We’ve asked them ourselves. Isn’t it just a reskinned Honda Civic Type R? What about the Acura bodywork makes it worth $7,105 more than the Honda? Head here for the full 2024 Acura Integra Type S review.
2024 BMW M2
We’ve been here before. In 2022, the then-new BMW 2 Series was just a vote shy of being named our 2023 Car of the Year. “The new 2 Series is proof BMW still knows how to build a driver's car,” we declared. Then, last year, the new BMW M2 also came agonizingly close to being named Car of the Year: “The M2 is the best sports car BMW makes ... it’s superlative,” we concluded. Yet the fabled Golden Calipers remained out of its reach. With the M2 getting another shot at redemption during our 2024 Performance Vehicle of the Year competition, will the third time finally be the charm?
No doubt, the M2 is well equipped for success at an event like PVOTY. Riding on BMW’s CLAR platform, the M engineering team leaned heavily on the work already done for its M3 and M4 big brothers. The platform features structural, suspension, and performance enhancements from the M3, M4, and 3 Series Touring, and its 3.0-liter twin-turbo I-6 has been ripped straight from its big brothers, as well. Head here for the full 2024 BMW M2 review.
2023 Ferrari 296 GTB
There’s a good reason Ferrari sits as ruler supreme atop all track and road machines. There aren’t many “bad” Ferraris, even when it tries something completely new, like a rear-drive twin-turbo V-6 plug-in hybrid with more than 800 horsepower. To the haters dismissing the V-6 on principle: Bye! The Ferrari 296 GTB is as righteous as they come.
Like with all Maranello stock, the powertrain is the main event. “It’s amazing how Ferrari tunes this electrified V-6 to match the building excitement of its V-12 engines racing toward redline,” deputy editor Alex Stoklosa said. “The mule-kick boost that lands just before a full-throttle upshift adds physical drama to that soaring aural performance.” Somehow, someone made the six sound like a 12. Marvelous stuff. Head here for the full 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB Review.
2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Eighty-six feet. It’s a number usually only approached by a handful of the greatest sports cars on the planet. That’s how short a 4,028-pound 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse stopped from 60 mph in our testing—better than any other production car we’ve ever tested.
While far from the only metric that has made the darkest of Ford’s new Mustangs special, the Dark Horse’s immense stopping power, headlined by a Brembo brake system featuring a set of six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers, was the talk of the Chuckwalla Valley during our Performance Vehicle of the Year hot lap sessions. (The car we had for PVOTY stopped in 90 feet during our testing.) Head here for the full 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse review.
2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
Hyundai didn’t have to go this hard, but it did. That’s our staff’s takeaway after spending two days lapping the 2025 Ioniq 5 N around Chuckwalla Raceway and yet another two days road-tripping the sporty EV throughout Southern California. Everyone expected something different from the hottest version of Hyundai’s electric SUV, but after days of test driving, judges were unanimous with their overwhelming enthusiasm for the Ioniq 5 N’s blend of whimsicality and thrilling performance.
In part, the joy imparted by the Ioniq 5 N comes from its theatricality. Buried under two layers of infotainment screen menus is an option to enable Hyundai’s N Active Sound+ feature, which plays three synthetic audio tracks accompanying throttle inputs. Ignition simulates a gas engine, Supersonic mimics a fighter jet, and Evolution is an abstracted take on what performance sounds like. Our judges enjoyed these modes to varying degrees, but most agreed Ignition was by far the best, especially when combined with the N e-shift mode. Head here for the full 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N review.
2024 Porsche 911 Dakar
By all accounts, the Porsche 911 Dakar should be a “worse” 911 Carrera 4 GTS coupe. Featuring the power-to-weight ratio of a Carrera S, knobby tires with less grip, a suspension lift, and a roof rack most of its car-collector owners will never take advantage of—save for the extra cash it’ll provide when they flip the car for big profit—it’s easy to dismiss the Dakar as a cynical cash grab disguised as a tribute to an overshadowed and relatively unsuccessful ’80s rally car. Yet despite all that, as associate editor Billy Rehbock put it, the Dakar “is the most fun I’ve ever had in a car.”
And why shouldn’t it be? For a company that at times might take itself incredibly seriously, the 911 Dakar feels like it’s in on the joke, from its “Roughroads” Rothman’s-like livery and that roof rack fitted with jerrycans, stubby traction boards, and a recovery shovel. But that’s not to say Porsche engineers didn’t take the assignment seriously. Head here for the full 2024 Porsche 911 Dakar review.
2024 Porsche 911 GT3 RS
If you’ve followed our previous coverage of the 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, you’ll forgive us for asking: What haven’t we reported by now in terms of how spectacularly this car performs? What haven’t we said that leaves any doubt about the track-focused abilities of the most dynamically capable, factory-built, road-legal, series-production 911 of all time? We raved about it in our first drive story and in our second drive story. We pitted it head to head against a 911 Cup race car at Road America. We ran it through our official MotorTrend testing regimen.
One upside of our Of The Year programs is that they allow more MT drivers to get behind the wheel of cars that don’t regularly roll through our test fleet. Our staffers work hand in hand daily and share opinions and tales of the cars they drive, yet sometimes we must take each other’s word for it in terms of how good or not so good a vehicle is. Head here for the full 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS review.