Ford Fiesta named car of the year

The Ford Fiesta has been named Car of the Year at the annual AMI Insurance NZ Autocar Car of the Year Awards.

The Ford Fiesta won the Car of the Year title as well as its own small car class at the annual AMI Insurance NZ Autocar Car of the Year Awards, in conjunction with Fairfax's NZ Autocar magazine.

The prestigious award, regarded as one of the most important in the industry, was decided over a day of arduous testing and driving on the track and on public roads.

At the end of the process, the wee Fiesta was awarded 512 points out of a total of 600, comfortably beating the Nissan GT-R by 21 points.  

NZ Autocar editor and chief judge, Kyle Cassidy, said the Fiesta was a clear winner with five of the six judges scoring it as their top pick.

The Fiesta registered highly across the board, gaining high praise from all the judges in the area of driving dynamics, practicality and value. 

Judges said: "The Ford Fiesta is a dynamic little car that re-defines value in the small car class. It impressed the judges with its plentiful safety and convenience features, edgy styling and entertaining handling ... it’s ridiculous value and stupendous fun to drive."

The Ford Fiesta was competing against five other vehicles vying for the AMI Insurance NZ Autocar Car of the Year Award. The award identifies the best new cars released in the preceding 12 months.    

Six judges took the cars to Hampton Downs MotorSport Park for the final drive off, to determine the overall winner.

Each car received an aggregate score out of 100 and was judged on design, performance, driving dynamics, practicality and value, with the points allocation being weighted accordingly so that vehicles from different categories can be fairly compared. 

The category winners are selected by the judges from new models launched in New Zealand between November 2008 and November 2009.
 
The finalists were the Ford Fiesta (Small Car of the Year), Mazda3 (Compact Car of the Year), the Subaru Legacy (Medium/Large Car of the Year), the Kia Sorento R (SUV of the Year), the Jaguar XF-D (Luxury Car of the Year), and the Nissan GT-R (Performance Car of the Year).

The judges for the NZ Autocar AMI Insurance award were: Kyle Cassidy - Editor, NZ Autocar. Peter Louisson - senior editor at NZ Autocar. Paul Owen - Former NZ Autocar editor. Dave Moore - Group Motoring Editor, Fairfax Media. Laurie Brady - National assessing manager for AMI Insurance, and a member of the Vehicle Standards Advisory Committee to Land Transport NZ. Shaun Summerfield - Sports presenter for TV3 and motoring reporter for Campbell Live.

- © Fairfax NZ News