Volkswagen Up! Wins World Car of the Year Award: 2012 New York Auto Show
Volkswagen‘s Up! continued the trend from the past four years of small cars winning the World Car of the Year Award at the New York Auto Show today.
“Our goal was always to make something small great,” a Volkswagen executive said on stage.
To garner the award, the Up! beat both the volume-selling and luxurious BMW 3 Series and the thrilling Porsche 911. The victory suggests that journalists across the world are putting a growing emphasis on greener, or at least more fuel-efficient vehicles.
This victory for means the automaker won four of the past five years for the most prestigious of the four awards offered by the World Car Awards each year.
Last year the Nissan Leaf took the award and was declared the winner for being the world’s first purpose-built, mass-produced electric car. In the years before that, Volkswagen’s Polo in 2010, the Golf in 2009 and Mazda 2 in 2008.
This is the seventh annual World Car Awards, which are decided by a panel of 64 automotive journalists from across the world. In order for a car to qualify for consideration, it must have been for sale from January 1, 2011 through May 30, 2012. Cars are selected based on overall merit, value, safety, environmental responsibility, emotional appeal, and significance.
Luke is an energetic automotive journalist who spends his time covering industry news and crawling the internet for the latest breaking story. When he isn't in the office, Luke can be found obsessively browsing used car listings, drinking scotch at his favorite bar and dreaming of what to drive next, though the list grows a lot faster than his bank account. He's always on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> looking for a good car conversation. Find Luke on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> and <A title="Luke on Google+" href="http://plus.google.com/112531385961538774338?rel=author">Google+</A>.
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