Our most read car reviews of 2020: No surprise there’s an SUV in the list, but guess which brand locked out the most spots

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SINGAPORE
With the new year we take a look back at 2020, warts and all, but also try to divine what the trends of the Plague Year were. If you haven’t already, read our Top 5 Stories of 2020 which looks over the news and assorted stories we did on CarBuyer.com.sg, while this story focuses on the most read car reviews of last year.

Unlike the Top 5 general stories however, you can see that CarBuyer’s readers have real spending intentions when looking at reviews: Not a single BEV made it into the Top 5, although the interest is certainly increasing. What we see here are solid views that follow established buying trends.

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5. Toyota Corolla Altis

No surprise the Corolla Altis ranks here – it’s been one of Singapore’s perenially popular cars and that shows no sign of changing with the new 12th gen model that debuted at the Singapore Motorshow (remember that?) in January 2020. Read the review for the full rundown (or watch the video below) but the takeaways are that a new platform, design, and hugely upgraded tech bring The Most Mainstream Sedan where it needs to be: Right at the head of the pack.

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4. Toyota Corolla Altis Hybrid

That the standard Corolla is much-read about is no surprise but this here is: The first officially-imported hybrid variant of the car. The hybrid system delivers crazy good fuel economy and even more refinement, but what’s also interesting is it presages a shift to mainstream hybrids for Toyota at last. Need proof? This year the Yaris Cross SUV is coming to Singapore with a 1.5-litre hybrid version.

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3. Toyota Previa Aeras

We admit we were stumped when we saw this car this high up on the views ranking – the Previa Aeras is a large MPV that’s been around for ages, but it also makes the case for ‘if it ain’t broke…’. With seven-seat SUVs being all the rage, perhaps it’s because some are coming to the realisation that if you really do need to move seven adults around without internecine strife, very little can compete with a large MPV for that task.

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2. Mercedes-Benz C 160

The classical ‘Five Cs’ might have lost some of their allure to the younger generation (simply because everything is so damn expensive) but for many, you might replace the ‘Car’ in 5Cs with one ‘M’ : Mercedes. And as traditional buying habits here go, the cheapest C-Class has always been the best-seller.

While the new-gen of small Mercs are less expensive, the C 160 remains the only Cat A ‘large’ Mercedes available – and while our review shows it’s not the best driving nor best-specced Merc around, there are plenty of practical reasons for its popularity.

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1. MG HS

Ju-Len’s sub-title almost says it all : “The MG HS is a new entrant that changes the budget car landscape in Singapore, and changes it for the better.”

In dollars and sense terms, how about a well made, good performing mid-sized SUV that costs less than S$100k with COE (it did in June 2020 anyway)?

Chinese cars have been here before but failed to make a big impression since Singaporean car buyers are, by and large, more than happy to pay for quality. But revived UK-based Chinese-owned MG offers an impressive amount of car for the money, even more so than Koreans, and has changed what you should expect for S$100k+, the only drawbacks being brand perception and no long term quality optics just yet. It’s for that reason the MG HS was the most-read review on CarBuyer.com.sg in 2020.

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