Where have the months gone? It is time to pick The Straits Times Car of the Year again.
As in previous years, 10 cars are shortlisted out of 50 or so new models launched this year.
But unlike recent years, when sport-utility vehicles and crossovers dominated, this year's list is a good mix of SUVs, performance models, executive sedans, a subcompact hatch, as well as an electric car.
More interestingly, Skoda has made it to the honour roll - and with two cars, no less.
That is a feat, considering that the Volkswagen-owned Czech brand had just returned to the Singapore market after a four-year absence.
Nationality-wise, the shortlisted cars this year are well-represented. The two Czech cars aside, there are two Korean cars (Kia Stinger and Hyundai Ioniq Electric), two Japanese (Lexus ES and Suzuki Swift), two Germans (Audi RS4 and BMW M5), one French (Renault Megane RS) and one Chinese-owned Swede (Volvo XC40).
The judges looked at all the new models that were launched in the 12-month period starting from the middle of November last year.
Only cars brought in by authorised agents were considered. And to remain relevant to as many readers as possible, only cars priced at $750,000 or less were considered.
The costliest nominee this year is the BMW M5, which is going for just above $500,000.
The least expensive is the Suzuki Swift, a cheerful subcompact starting from $69,900.
The judges are still going through the cars in the line-up and comparing each with its peers to decide how it scores on various crucial qualities.
Some are arranging refresher test drives before ticking the various boxes on a scorecard.
The car that scores the highest will be named ST Car of the Year 2018.
The current shortlist of 10 nominees is a distilled form of a longer list.
The cars on that preliminary list which did not make it to the final shortlist - but which still deserve some merit for standing out among 50 cars - include the Hyundai i30, Volkswagen Polo, Peugeot 5008 and Subaru Forester.
This year, the panel of judges is slightly smaller at 11, down from 12. Torque editor David Ting has left to join the motor industry.
He contributed to early cuts of the shortlist selection process, but did not take part in deciding the final list of 10.
Voting for the winner will begin shortly and results will be announced on Dec 29.
Vote
Which car do you think deserves to be ST Car of the Year 2018? You can have your say in an online poll here. Go to https://poll.fm/10184543. Voting ends on Friday at 10am. To help you decide, the following are short descriptions of each car:
