Model years, generations and carry-over: how history is graded
Every nameplate carries up to ten model years, each scored on its own. How generation boundaries are sourced, what a carry-over year looks like in the data, and where the biggest one-year jumps in the fleet came from.
MotorGPA is anchored on the 2026 model year, but it is not a 2026-only site. Every nameplate carries up to ten model years, and each one is a separate scorecard produced under the same framework — a 2019 Silverado is graded as a 2019 Silverado, against the same bands, not inferred from the 2026 one. This guide is about how that history is built and how to read it.
What is scored and what is not
Right now 295 models are graded at their latest year and 113 of them have more than one scored year, for 973 scored model years in all; the deepest nameplates carry 10. Across the whole catalog the registry tracks 2283 browseable model years, of which 984 are scored — the current year is the priority and is effectively complete, and the back catalog is filled in behind it. A model year that has not been scored is shown as “scoring to come” and has no page. It is never filled with a placeholder or an estimate; a gap is more honest than a guess, and a guessed year would corrupt the year-over-year comparison on both sides of it.
Where the history comes from
Production history — when a nameplate started, where its generations begin and end, and which US model years exist — is sourced from Wikipedia’s model-year records, and that is deliberate. For history, Wikipedia is authoritative in the way an encyclopedia should be: the generation boundaries of a mainstream vehicle are settled fact and well cited. It is not used for anything measured. EPA figures come from fueleconomy.gov, crash ratings from NHTSA and IIHS, specifications from the manufacturer. The article is what tells the scorer whether the 2021 model year is a carry-over or a redesign; it is never what tells it the towing capacity.
The generation boundaries drive two things you can see. The production timeline on each multi-year car page is drawn from them. And the vehicle photograph is resolved through them: a car page shows the photo for its exact year if one exists, otherwise the nearest year within the same generation, and only as a last resort a photo from another generation, captioned as such — because putting a redesigned body on the pre-redesign year’s page is an accuracy problem, not a cosmetic one.
Carry-over years
Most model years are carry-overs: the same car with a new paint color and perhaps a package shuffle. Their scorecards look nearly identical to the year before, and they should — the year-exact research confirms nothing changed, and the score reflects that. What moves in a carry-over year is usually external: a new IIHS test the car had not faced before, a recall that lands on its record, a reliability prediction revised on a year’s more data, or a price increase that shifts the ownership-cost criteria. The car page’s “vs prior year” strip lists exactly which criteria moved and by how much, so a carry-over year with a two-point change shows you the two points.
Where the big moves come from
Redesigns are where the grade jumps. The largest single-year moves in the graded fleet:
| Vehicle | From | To | Overall score | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 Fiat 500e | 2019 | 2024 | 38.1 → 49.7 | +11.6 |
| 2018 Lincoln Navigator | 2017 | 2018 | 55.4 → 66.1 | +10.7 |
| 2018 Jeep Wrangler | 2017 | 2018 | 38.0 → 48.0 | +10 |
| 2023 Subaru Ascent | 2022 | 2023 | 56.3 → 66.0 | +9.7 |
| 2019 Audi Q3 | 2018 | 2019 | 45.0 → 54.5 | +9.5 |
| 2022 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 | 2021 | 2022 | 55.5 → 64.3 | +8.8 |
| 2025 Buick Enclave | 2024 | 2025 | 62.8 → 71.2 | +8.4 |
| 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee | 2021 | 2022 | 52.9 → 60.8 | +7.9 |
Almost every entry is a generation change, and the pattern within them is consistent: the biggest single contributor is nearly always Safety, because a redesign brings the driver-assistance suite that the old platform could not fit, and Safety carries a fifth of the overall GPA. Technology is usually second, for the same reason. Reliability often moves the other way in the first year of a new generation — first-year reliability predictions are cautious by nature — which is why a redesign’s first year sometimes grades lower overall than its second. Ten years of the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, graded walks through one nameplate’s decade in that detail.
Reading a multi-year car page
The car page defaults to the latest scored year. The year switcher and the production timeline take you to any other, and each year’s page is that year’s scorecard — same layout, that year’s figures. The evolution section plots every scored year on one chart with a subject heatmap beneath it and lets you compare any two years side by side; that is where a used-car question like “did the 2022 refresh actually fix the infotainment” gets a criterion-level answer.