The great and the good of the motor industry gathered in London on Weds night (9th Jan) to witness the annual What Car? awards. The overall title was given to the Audi A3 Sportback, which took the Small Family Car class, too. Other winners included the last year's overall winning Volkswagen up! in the City Car Category, while the supermini class was won by the Ford Fiesta.
Contrary to our predictions earlier in the week Ford also held onto the Estate Car gong with its Mondeo, and its hatchback relation took the Family Car category. Further Ford silverware was gained with the Focus ST winning the hot hatch category. Porsche took Sports Car honours with its Boxster, SEAT the MPV class with the Alhambra, and BMW took the Executive Car and SUV categories with its 320d EfficientDynamics and X3 respectively.
MINI claimed the Open Top category with its Cooper S Roadster, while Land Rover's Range Rover took honours in the Luxury Car class. What Car?'s Reader Award went to the Alfa Romeo 4C, while the Ultra Low Carbon title was given to Mazda for its Skyactiv technology.
Some rather surprising winners in some categories and a few obvious omissions in others, both Volkswagen's Golf and the Mercedes-Benz A-Class rather conspicuous in their absence.
Kyle Fortune - 11 Jan 2013