Every November, Robb Report hands its readers the keys. For more than two decades, Robb Report Car of the Year has asked the people who actually buy these cars to drive them back to back and decide which one deserves the title. This year, Everrati is taking part, and we’re bringing something the competition rarely sees: a car designed in 1963.
What is Robb Report Car of the Year?
Most car awards are decided by journalists. Robb Report’s is different. Readers and invited judges drive each car in turn and score it, and the votes decide the winner. Past editions have judged the field on looks, performance, luxury and comfort, utility, and the harder-to-define intangibles that make a car worth owning.
The 2027 edition runs in South Florida across three-day sessions from November 8 to 14, 2026, with driving on The Concours Club’s two-mile circuit. The winner is revealed in Robb Report’s February issue.
Previous Robb Report Car of the Year winners
The roll of honor reads like a list of the cars that defined their moment:
- 2004 – Bentley Continental GT
- 2007 – Bentley Continental GT Convertible
- 2022 – Bentley Continental GT Speed
- 2023 – Bentley Continental GT S
- 2024 – Aston Martin DB12
- 2025 – McLaren 750S Spider
- 2026 – Aston Martin Vanquish
In 2017 the vote produced the competition’s first-ever tie, with Lamborghini’s Huracán Spyder sharing the title. The pattern is clear: grand tourers that are as good to look at as they are to drive tend to win. Last year’s Aston Martin Vanquish, a front-engined V12 GT, was the latest proof.
Is electrification changing Car of the Year?
Slowly. Recent fields have included the Pininfarina Battista, the electric Mercedes-Benz G 580, the Audi RS e-tron GT and the Rolls-Royce Spectre. An all-electric car has yet to take the overall title. The voters, it seems, still want character as much as performance.
That is exactly the question Everrati exists to answer.
Why Everrati is bringing the electric Pagoda
The Mercedes-Benz W113 SL, known as the Pagoda for its concave hardtop, made its debut at the 1963 Geneva Motor Show. It was one of the first sports cars built around a safety body with crumple zones, and its lines, drawn by Paul Bracq, have never needed updating.
Our electric Pagoda leaves every one of those lines alone. Each car is taken back to its bare shell and rebuilt by hand, with an electric powertrain packaged inside the original structure and the car’s weight and balance engineered to keep the feel it was known for. It looks as it did in 1963. It drives as it might have, had Mercedes-Benz had the technology at the time.
Put it alongside the newest grand tourers and it asks a different question from the rest of the field: not what’s the latest, but what lasts.
See the electric Mercedes-Benz Pagoda
Every Everrati Pagoda is an individual commission, built to order with a limited number of build slots. Explore the specification, the options and the commissions already delivered on the electric Mercedes-Benz W113 SL Pagoda page, or read our electric Pagoda buyer’s guide.
