Kelley Blue Book Introduces All-New Best Buy Awards

Finalists Announced for KBB.com's New Premier Awards; Winners to be Revealed in November, Honoring Best Vehicle Choices Available in U.S. Market

IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Kelley Blue Book www.kbb.com, the only vehicle valuation and information source trusted and relied upon by both consumers and the automotive industry, today introduces its all-new annual Kelley Blue Book Best Buy Awards, which will honor the top new model year vehicle choices available in the U.S. market.  Along with the launch of the new Best Buy Awards, Kelley Blue Book announces the finalists that now will undergo head-to-head comparison testing and evaluation by KBB.com's editorial team during the next several weeks. Ultimately the winners in each category and an overall winner will be announced in November.

The Kelley Blue Book Best Buy Awards is an all-new, premier awards program designed to provide a significant service to American new-car buyers by identifying the cream of the crop of all available 2015 model-year vehicles.  The finalist models are chosen on a set of criteria that identify overall vehicle quality and value, based both on proprietary Kelley Blue Book metrics and the expert evaluations of the KBB.com editorial staff.  The awards are the culmination of a year-long regimen of expert vehicle evaluation and testing of nearly every new vehicle available in America, along with analysis of a broad swath of vehicle-related data, including vehicle pricing/transaction prices, 5-Year Cost-to-Own data (which includes depreciation, insurance, maintenance, financing, fuel, fees and taxes for new cars), consumer reviews and ratings, and vehicle sales/retail sales information. 

"With the all-new Kelley Blue Book Best Buy Awards, we aim to provide a significant consumer service by identifying 2015 model-year vehicles that our expert evaluators believe to be the absolute best-value choices for new-car shoppers," said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book's KBB.com.  "The Kelley Blue Book Best Buys will represent the highest level of quality and value of all vehicles available in the American market.  While at the conclusion of the testing and evaluation period only 12 prestigious models will be deemed 2015 Kelley Blue Book Best Buy Award winners, it is a very high honor for a vehicle to be chosen as a finalist for these prominent awards."

Of more than 300 new-car models available for 2015, Kelley Blue Book's expert editors have narrowed the field to a total of 50 Best Buy Award Finalists that include 20 vehicle makes across 12 major vehicle categories.  At the conclusion of the test-evaluation regimen, winners will be named a Kelley Blue Book Best Buy in each of the 12 categories, along with an overall Best Buy of 2015 winner.

"Because there are so many varying needs and wants of car shoppers, we felt it was important to name a very prestigious and limited, yet still very diverse group of Best Buys in different categories that span the majority of segments most popular in the United States," Nerad said.  "As the KBB.com editors engage in testing and evaluation of the Best Buy Award Finalists in the coming weeks, our focus will be on providing a significant service for the vast majority of today's American car shoppers, and we are confident they will benefit from learning what the experts at the trusted Kelley Blue Book think are the best new models for 2015."

2015 Kelley Blue Book Best Buy Awards Finalists

To discuss this topic, or any other automotive-related information, with a Kelley Blue Book analyst on-camera via the company's on-site studio, please contact a member of the Public Relations team to book an interview.

For more information and news from Kelley Blue Book's KBB.com, visit www.kbb.com/media/, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kelleybluebook (or @kelleybluebook), like our page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kbb, and get updates on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/+kbb.

About Kelley Blue Book (www.kbb.com)
Founded in 1926, Kelley Blue Book, The Trusted Resource®, is the only vehicle valuation and information source trusted and relied upon by both consumers and the automotive industry.  Each week the company provides the most market-reflective values in the industry on its top-rated website KBB.com, including its famous Blue Book® Trade-In Values and Fair Purchase Price, which reports what others are paying for new and used cars this week.  The company also provides vehicle pricing and values through various products and services available to car dealers, auto manufacturers, finance and insurance companies, and governmental agencies.  Kelley Blue Book's KBB.com ranked highest in its category for brand equity by the 2014 Harris Poll EquiTrend^® study and has been named Online Auto Shopping Brand of the Year for three consecutive years.  Kelley Blue Book Co., Inc. is a Cox Automotive company.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121108/LA08161LOGO

SOURCE Kelley Blue Book

For further information: Chintan Talati, 949-267-4855, ctalati@kbb.com; Joanna Pinkham, 404-568-7135, jpinkham@kbb.com; Brenna Robinson, 949-267-4781, berobinson@kbb.com