VW Passat named European Car of the Year 2015

VW Passat named European Car of the Year

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/news/vw-passat-car-of-the-year/

The Volkswagen Passat has taken the European Car of the Year crown, beating rivals from Citroen, Ford and Renault

2015 VW Passat driving, front view

The Volkswagen Passat has been named European Car of the Year 2015

2 March 2015 • 5:12pm
Andrew English
Motoring Correspondent, Telegraph Cars

Volkswagen has scooped the 2015 European Car of the Year award for its Passat model, with a huge margin of votes over the other six shortlisted cars.

The Passat’s 340-vote victory was 92 points ahead of the second-placed Citroen C4 Cactus and is one of the largest margins in 51 years of European Coty history. Mercedes-Benz’s C-class came in third place.  

Announced on the eve of the Geneva motor show, the Coty award was judged by 58 judges across 22 different European countries. Whittled down from an initial list of 31, the seven-strong shortlist of cars was said by the President Hakan Matson to be one of the hardest ever to judge.
The Passat, though came through a clear favourite in spite of the British judges (including yours truly from The Telegraph), rating the Citroën as the better car and putting BMW’s 2-series Active Tourer in second place, with the Passat in third.

This is Volkswagen’s third Coty award in five years, the Polo winning it in 2010 and the Golf (on which the Passat is heavily based) in 2013.

The full list of votes is: Volkswagen Passat, 340 points; Citoren C4 Cactus, 248 points; Mercedes-Benz C-Class, 221 points; Ford Mondeo, 203 points; Nissan Qashqai, 160 points; BMW 2-Series Active Tourer, 154 points and Renault Twingo, 124 points.