The all-new Ford Fiesta took top honours at the 32nd annual What Car? Car of the Year Awards 2009. In fact Ford scooped four awards in total.
What Car? editor Steve Fowler said: ‘The Fiesta is the right car at the right time – small in size, but big on ability. We love the way it looks and the way it drives, but it also stacks up as a shrewd buy, offering space and quality, while being affordable to buy and run”.
The Fiesta was also named best supermini, while Ford’s Mondeo won two awards, for best family car and best estate car.
Jaguar’s XF, last year’s What Car? Car of the Year, retained its title of best executive car, while the Mini Cooper S won the best hot hatch Award for the third year running.
Volkswagen came away with three awards including the Readers’ Award for the Golf GTi, voted most exciting new car to go on sale in 2009 by users of whatcar.com and evecars.com The new VW Golf was also named best small family car, while the VW Eos won the best open-top car award.
Euro NCAP, the European New Car Assessment Programme, picked up the prestigious What Car? safety accolade for its work in testing and rating the safety of all new cars over the last 10 years and influencing the design of the cars we drive today.
Other winners included the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso – a three-time winner in the MPV category – Nissan’s new GT-R in the performance car category, Volvo’s XC60 in the SUV category and the Audi TT in the coupé category.
