New York: And the World Car of the Year is...
by Sam Abuelsamid on Apr 9th 2009 at 9:59AM 
Click above for a high res gallery of the finalists
It seems everyone has a car of the year award to give out from the perpetual (and perpetually controversial) Motor Trend version to the North American COTY named at the Detroit Auto Show. This morning at the New York Auto Show, the one and only World Car of the Year was named. Actually, four winners were named, an overall victor, best design, best performance and best green car. The only car to make it to the final three in two different categories was the diminutive Toyota iQ that also appeared as the latest Scion concept yesterday.
The overall winner chose by the 59 international jurors turned out to be the new VW MK VI Golf, beating out the Ford Fiesta and the iQ. Among the top performance cars, the Nissan GT-R beat out rivals like the Corvette ZR1 and Porsche 911. The top design was between the Citroen C5, Fiat 500 and the Jaguar XF with the 500 taking the beauty contest honors.
Gallery: 2009 World Car of the Year
Gallery: Volkswagen Golf VI
Photos Copyright ©2009 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
C.W. 10:11AM (4/09/2009)
i still vote fiesta.
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Avinash machado 10:11AM (4/09/2009)
How many of these awards are trustworthy I wonder. Some of them might be more like advertorials.
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David 11:11AM (4/09/2009)
They're just someone's opinion, and like everyone else's opinion they stink.
ugg.tryptophan 10:13AM (4/09/2009)
"Jaguar XF ... taking the beauty contest honors."...deserved
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arkutek 3:04PM (4/10/2009)
it clearly says 500 meaning the fiat. read read read !!!!!!
JDMlover 10:18AM (4/09/2009)
Golf?????
You cant be serious.....
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Kumar 10:36AM (4/09/2009)
Remember, it's world car, not USA car of the year. The Golf is pretty popular just about everywhere else. Remember too that the rest of the world gets many more versions of the Golf than we do stateside.
why not the LS2LS7? 11:37AM (4/09/2009)
Go back and look at the GTI topic. Even if it was the US, there are lots of people on here who say the Golf is the best thing ever. Someone compared it to a Porsche.
But what really baffles me is the Fiesta. Look at all the people on here sticking up for it when almost all of them have never even actually seen one. Ford has done a hell of a sell job on that car. Ford has a history of this, for a while in Europe the Ka was a bit of an "it" car even with people who could afford a much better car.
Sektor 11:38AM (4/09/2009)
The Golf is a great car. VW is underexposed in the U.S., but it is soon to be world's #2 automaker behind Toyota. They must be doing something right.
jeff 10:22AM (4/09/2009)
ya Fiesta is way more interesting, and making much more of a splash on the market, both in Europe and in NA.
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bdan 10:23AM (4/09/2009)
if VW wins anything, it should be a highest cost to own award.
they make some great cars.....when they work, which is not often.
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Kumar 10:35AM (4/09/2009)
This is starting to sound like the dead horse beating of the 70s diesels.
I know the last gen VWs (pretty much all of them) had issues, but haven't heard or read much on the latest bunch. I must admit though, not owning one means I don't spend all day on the vwvortex site chatting up reliability issues. ;)
Bloke 10:51AM (4/09/2009)
BS. Just because the mk4 Golf/Jetta/Beetle platform was beset with electrical problems, a small group of individuals seem intent on rubbishing VW's name at every opportunity. Whilst it was a serious glitch, it shouldn't impede VW's reputation and hasn't done in most parts of the world.
VW has an excellent reputation generally worldwide, and little wonder that their Skoda subsidiary practically tops Lexus in every reliability survey published.
Jesse Isaacson 11:57AM (4/09/2009)
I have an '03 and a '96 Jetta and they both work fine. The radio went in the '03 which was annoying, but not the end of the world (ironically the radio in the '96 was stolen). I'll admit that VW's often have "minor" issues, electrical or otherwise, but often are very sound mechanically (I've owned a LOT in the past). They're no Honda or Toyota, but I enjoy driving VWs more than the Japanese cars.
I think overall most modern cars are extremely reliable, no matter where they're made, period.
tekd 1:08PM (4/09/2009)
@jessie
So the key to enjoying a VW is to get the radio stolen so we'll never have electrical problems with it!
Personally I'll wait until VW proves that they can make cars without electrical gremlins. It has nothing to do with Mk IV's, VW's have had weird electrical problems since the Beetle.
Still the newer ones are probably more reliable or they wouldn't sell so many cars.
Bloke 1:30PM (4/09/2009)
At tekd: I know plenty of people with Passats, Polos, Golfs, et al who have had no problems whatsoever. We've had a Jetta Sportline since 2007 again with no problems at all.
The electrical issues were pretty much almost entirely confined to the mk4 Golf, Jetta and original Beetle. Now, in the USA, that's the bulk of VW's line-up, but not elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, when looking at those models alone, the US gets a choice of just a couple of engines whereas much of the rest of the world gets a whole raft of different engines to choose from. Furthermore, Americans aren't privy to the Seat and Skoda models spawned from VW platforms.
That's one key reason why Americans have a different perception to VW than almost everyone else.
Ligor 10:23AM (4/09/2009)
If hte Fiesta was for sale worldwide like the Golf then i'd say it should have gotten the honors, but as of yet it is not, so it does not deserve the world car of the year
the GT-R won the performance car - i agree, it's tough picking one out in this category, cause they are all fun to drive adn awesome machines, but I can see AWD being an advantage since it can be used in all weather, i'm not sure i'd go out in the snow with a ZR-1, but I'd sure as hell want two parked in my garage (dreaming here)
the 500 might be cool, but to take the beauty contest? I don't agree with this one
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why not the LS2LS7? 10:39AM (4/09/2009)
The GT-R has almost no ground clearance and it comes with summer tires. If you drive it in the winter you'll be rather unhappy.
Serge 11:02AM (4/09/2009)
I also don't understand why people assume that the GT-R or any other AWD extremely high-performance car will be drivable when a snow storm hits? It's not going to loose as much acceleration from a full stop when it stops raining, but that's about it...
I can't wait until some poor shmuck is going to try out his GT-R in 1'+ of snow... does anyone have a youtube link? Or actual owners of GT-Rs are a lot smarter than the fanboys?
Ligor 11:41PM (4/12/2009)
yeah,
except I can easily get some winter tires
it will definitely not work so well if here is 4+ inches of snow on the ground but it will do fine with less snow and will do just fine and better than any RWD vehicle or even most fwd ones.
you all need to give AWD a try in the winter in a G35x or some other sedan
might proove insightfull