What's the news?
Sure as New Year follows Christmas, January signals the What Car? awards. In the usual jam-packed Dorchester Hotel ballroom in London, the great and the good of the automotive world (and us) witnessed What Car?'s annual gong-fest.
The overall title went to Skoda's Fabia, so expect every one of Skoda's latest supermini rolling out of showrooms for the next 12 months to feature a window sticker proclaiming its win. In taking the overall title it also won the small car class. Other winners in the various categories included the Hyundai i10 in the City Car class and Skoda took the double with the Octavia winning the family car class.
Other multiple category wins came from Audi, Ford and Land Rover. Audi's A3 e-tron won the electric car class - being a plug-in hybrid - the Audi TT won the coupé group and the A3 Cabriolet won the drop-top title. Ford cleaned up with the Mondeo Estate in the estate car category, while its Fiesta ST won the hot hatch award.
Executive honours went to the BMW 5 Series and the luxury car award went to the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Land Rover picked up the safety award for its Discovery Sport, while the Range Rover Sport won the large SUV category and Nissan picked up small SUV honours with the Qashqai. Citroen's C4 Grand Picasso took the win in the MPV class and the Porsche Boxster headed the sports car group.
No real surprises then, except perhaps Honda's forthcoming HR-V winning the reader award for most anticipated launch of the year... If we were picking a Honda we'd get a bit more excited about the new NSX...
The winners
What Car? Car of the Year - Skoda Fabia
City Car - Hyundai i10
Small Car - Skoda Fabia
Family Car - Skoda Octavia
Electric Car - Audi A3 e-tron
Coupé - Audi TT
Estate Car - Ford Mondeo Estate
MPV - Citroen C4 Grand Picasso
Safety Award - Land Rover Discovery Sport
Hot Hatch - Ford Fiesta ST
Convertible - Audi A3 Cabriolet
Small SUV - Nissan Qashqai
Reader Award - Honda HR-V
Large SUV - Range Rover Sport
Executive Car - BMW 520d
Sports Car - Porsche Boxster
Luxury Car - Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Kyle Fortune - 8 Jan 2015