Top 5: Most read news stories of 2020

There was plenty of global news in 2020, which will go down in the history books for the year an invisible virus brought the world to a standstill.

But while the automotive industry wasn't immune to the impacts of Covid-19, there was still plenty of news to cover.

As many Australians endured through lockdowns, there were five news stories which dominated on CarAdvice. Here are the top five news articles for 2020.

The CarAdvice New Car Calendar slotted itself into fifth position thanks to the hard work of Production Editor Mike Stevens and Journalist Alex Misoyannis.

One could easily assume we're merely transcribing dates from one document into this story, but every one of the hundreds of models released and updated over the year has to be chased up individually, confirming with every manufacturer to ensure our information is as accurate as possible.

For this reason, the CarAdvice New Car Calendar has become one of the industry's most reliable sources of information, and making it very popular among new-car buyers.

READ: New Cars: 2020 New Car Calendar

You could be forgiven for forgetting the news of Holden's demise happened this year, but on February 17, our National Motoring Editor Josh Dowling confirmed the brand would leave before the end of 2020.

Of the top five news articles listed here, this story garnered the most reaction from our readership, with around 1200 comments from sad, shocked, and angry Australians.

It also lays claim to the second most shared news story, being shared around 70,000 times across the internet as people came to terms with the axing of the iconic brand by General Motors.

READ: Holden axed in Australia as General Motors gets out of right-hand-drive globally

Only two days after news broke of Holden being shut down, Josh Dowling reported on the massive discounts being applied to the Holden model range.

Bargain-hunters scoured the copy, wanting to secure themselves a cut-price Holden before the brand left the country.

While the smart money might have been on the Holden closure being the most popular new article of the year, our exclusive story on the new-car discounts stole third place, proving that Aussies still love a good deal.

READ: Holden discounts cars by up to $17,500, some models close to half price

It was the news story that dominated the airwaves globally, but as the second-largest state in Australia endured through two widespread lockdowns this year, Journalist Susannah Guthrie was in constant contact with government authorities confirming exactly how the rules were being applied.

The CarAdvice Melbourne office was shut for most of the year too, and as we all learned to work and communicate remotely, it seemed we were referring to this document just as much as our readers were.

With the rules changing on a weekly basis, it was clear a large proportion of the CarAdvice community in Victoria read this news story to get the latest and easiest-to-understand information on the lockdowns, taking out the number two spot for the most popular news stories of 2020.

READ: Victoria's coronavirus lockdown rules: Your car questions, answered

No, really. The number one most-read news story of 2020 was about a unconventional diesel tank engine, written by our Off-road Editor, Sam Purcell.

There have been a lot of theories thrown around the office as to why our readers were so enamoured with reading about the Cummins engine, but the truth is we're not really sure why the article was shared more than 80,000 times – that's just the nature of when something goes viral.

For what was arguably the strangest year in living memory, we close out 2020 with another oddity: apparently you all really, really like wacky tank engines.

READ: Four cylinders, eight pistons and no valves: Meet Cummins’ new 1000hp tank engine