SANTA MONICA, Calif. -

College basketball teams like Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina and Syracuse might be among the favorites to celebrate a national championship, but the NCAA Tournament winner won’t be the only one “cutting down the nets,” so to speak, on April 2.

As the most celebrated three weeks in college hoops is set to get underway, Edmunds.com has launched an automotive bracket-style tournament in the mold of March Madness that will crown “the most popular car on the road today” as voted upon by auto enthusiasts.

The “Car Madness 2012” bracket consists of 32 vehicles that were chosen for being among the most-researched models on Edmunds.com. There are four brackets with eight models each. They include:

—Small Cars
—Midsize/Large Cars
—SUVs/Trucks
—Luxury Vehicles

And similar to how the NCAA Tournament gives the top basketball teams the No. 1 seeds in each region, the models with the most research volume in each segment will get the No. 1 seed in that particular Car Madness bracket. The seeding process is done in descending order.

“The best part of this tournament is that users are free to set their own criteria for which cars are the best,” said Edmunds.com executive editor Michael Jordan. “Do you care more about the car’s fuel efficiency or its performance? Maybe you just think it’s a good looking car.

“Maybe you drive the car yourself, or you prefer foreign cars to domestics. As far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t matter why you vote as long as you vote,” he continued.

The vehicles will “compete” in the bracket-style pairing format similar to the NCAA Tourney. The winner of each pairing then goes on to the next round. The overall winner of the bracket will be revealed on April 2 (which is the same day the NCAA champ will be crowned).

Printable brackets and more information can be found through the company’s Straightline blog on InsideLine.com.