Last Wednesday, 21 March, I had the pleasure of chairing the prize-giving of Coches.net 2012 Best Car of the Year Awards, an event, which took place in the Royal Tapices Factory in Madrid. I was immensely overwhelmed at the sector’s participation, where more than 200 people came along, including representatives from the motor vehicle association, official organisations and brands.
In June 2011, we launched microsite so that our more than 3.6 million users could vote for the best cars out of over 120 new models that were presented this year. This is the fist prize-giving that received such an outstanding reaction: more than 200.000 votes! This clearly demonstrates Coche’s.net potential as a catalytic converter of motor vehicle users’ opinions in our country, even though the experts opinion is vital in this sector, the users are the ones who have the last say when buying a car.
Our users were left at their own free will to vote for their favourite car in each of the ten categories put forward: best luxury car, executive car, city and compact, sports car, convertible, best family car, people carrier, four-wheel-drive SUV, best utility and ecological car. The car that received the most number of votes in each category won the Prize for the Best Car of the Year. Opel and Mercedes-Benz were the brands that won the most awards that night, both taking 2 trophies home with them. Likewise, Range Rover Evoque received, in addition to the Prize for the Best Car of the Year in the SUV four-wheel drive category, the award for the most Popular Car of the year obtaining the greatest number of votes, more than 10,000. I must admit this car was the star attraction throughout 2011, in addition to winning our award, it has already won 90 awards worldwide.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Luis Valero, the General Secretary of Industry and SMEs, for attending and supporting this very special evening and kindly presenting the most Popular Car award. I would also like to thank the main organisers, the Honours Committee: Anfac, Aniacam, Ganvam and Faconauto, and the Department of Transport for their support and cooperation.
We at Coches.net guarantee commitment to the automobile sector and we continue to encourage initiatives that focus on boosting car sales and support actions that contribute in some way to the improvement of road safety in our country.
I would like to congratulate the Coches.net team for the superb job they carried out. We are now even more motivated as the 2012 event was a great success and hence, have already started working on the second award giving ceremony as we speak. We are very pleased to see how much our users have participated in this event. By no means would this have been possible without them.
THE WINNERS
| RANGE ROVER EVOQUE |
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PORSCHE PANAMERA TURBO |
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Most popular car &
Best SUV- four-wheel drive
Total no. of votes: 10.480 |
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Best luxury car
Total no. of votes: 6.691 |
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| CITROËN DS4 |
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MERCEDES BENZ CLASE C COUPÉ |
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Best City and Compact Car
Total no. of votes: 6.913 |
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Best Executive car
Total no. of votes: 8.628 |
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| LAMBORGHINI AVENTADOR LP 700-4 |
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MERCEDES-BENZ SLS AMG ROADSTER |
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Best Sports Car
Total no. of votes: 5.889 |
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Best Convertible
Total no. of votes: 6.411 |
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| AUDI A6 AVANT |
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OPEL AMPERA |
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Best Family Car
Total no. of votes: 9.759 |
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Best Ecological Car
Total no. of votes: 6.095 |
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| OPEL ZAFIRA TOURER |
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MINI COUPÉ |
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Best People Carrier
Total no. of votes: 6.547 |
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Best Utility
Total no. of votes: 5.929 |
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