This is SA's 2016 Car of the Year
The SAGMJ's extensive evaluations and electronic scoring system have produced a winner.
|||Ekurhuleni - South Africa's 2016 Wesbank SAGMJ Car of the Year is the Volvo XC90.
Second was the Ford Fusion, with the Mazda2 in third. The winner was announced at gala banquet held at Emperor's Palace in Kempton Park on Tuesday night and this year's contest saw some changes to the judging process, with a new electronic scoring system featuring categories.
Judging took place in early February when the 26-member jury, consisting of motoring journalists selected by members of the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists (SAGMJ), spent two days thoroughly evaluating the 12 finalists.
While the vehicle evaluation procedure, which included some extreme dynamic tests at the Gerotek facility, remained largely as before, the new scoring system focused on categories, rather than giving each individual car an overall score as had been the case in recent years.
The categories were: interior design & practicality, exterior aesthetics, safety & technology, performance, handling & dynamics, efficiency, value for money and overall excellence.
The competition organisers also applied a weighting to these categories, to favour the more sensible factors such as value.