Toronto, ON – The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada, better known as AJAC, revealed its category winners of their annual vehicle of the year testing program and there were many automakers who have their hands full of awards.

Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Subaru were the big winners notching two “Best New” categories each. Hyundai and Porsche both went two-for-two on its entries, as it was a sedan sweep for the Sonata and Genesis in its categories; while the 911 Turbo S and Macan S took home wins in its respective categories.

Mercedes-Benz and Subaru both won two out of four categories. Mercedes-Benz took home the Luxury under ($50K) category with the C-Class and the Prestige (over $75K) with the S-Class Coupe. Subaru missed out on wins for the WRX and STI, but won the Family (under $30K) with the Legacy and SUV/CUV (under $35K) with the Outback.

Rounding out the other winners were the Kia Soul EV, Honda Fit, Volkswagen Golf, BMW M235i, Volvo V60 Polestar, Toyota Highlander and the Ford F-150.

General Motors might have had the most entries with eight, but they were under stiff competition everywhere they were slotted. After coming one point away from winning the 2014 AJAC Canadian Car of the Year award with the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, they will have to wait until next year for a bounce back into the winner's circle. In general, it wasn't a positive year for any North American automaker with only one category win coming from Ford in a grouping that only had North American vehicles competing.

To recap how the results were tabulated, testing concluded five weeks ago in Niagara Falls with 70 journalists testing and scoring new vehicles to the market for five full days. Journalists were assigned specific categories and had to test these vehicles based on “real world” back-to-back tests using the exact routes for each vehicle to enable an impartial judgement.

AJAC is considered a valuable source of information for consumers and these awards are highly coveted by the automakers who participate in it. For more information on the specific results and breakdown of each vehicle, please feel free to go to www.ajac.ca.

The 15 category winners will be narrowed down to three finalists for Canadian Car of the Year, as well as the three finalists for Canadian utility vehicle of the year at the Montreal International Auto Show. And then it all finally concludes at the Canadian International AutoShow in Toronto on February 12 when the 2015 Canadian Car and Utility Vehicle overall winners are announced.