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Johannesburg: For the first time, an electric vehicle has won the AutoTrader South African Car of the Year award, with the Jaguar I-Pace EV400 AWD SE earning top honors in the 2020 competition.
The Jaguar I-Pace also won 2019 World Car of the Year and European Car of the Year competitions.
This is the first time that a Jaguar Land Rover product has won the SA COTY competition, which has been organized by the South African Association of Motoring Journalists since 1986. The announcement was made at a ‘virtual award ceremony’ that aired on YouTube, due to the closure situation.
Organizers also announced the second place awards, with second place for the Mercedes-Benz GLE400d 4Matic and last place on the podium taken by the Toyota GR Supra 3.0T.
However, the fact that this year’s car of the year is a R1.7 million car is not going to be good for some people, but it is worth noting that the main objective of the competition is to provide excellence, and there is a series of category awards set to make results more relevant to a wider audience.
If we talk strictly about relevance, the winners of the Urban and Leisure category, namely the Hyundai Atos and Volkswagen T-Cross, are the real winners of the Car of the Year for the vast majority of South Africans.
Below is the full list of category winners in the AutoTrader South African Auto of the Year 2020 competition:
CATEGORY WINNERS
Urban: Hyundai Atos 1.1 Motion
Family: Toyota Corolla Hatch 1.2T XR CVT
Leisure: Volkswagen T-Cross 1.0 TSI Comfortline 85kW DSG
Lifestyle utility: Ford Ranger Raptor
Premium car: Jaguar I-PACE EV400 AWD SE
Premium SUV: Mercedes-Benz GLE400d 4Matic
Performance car: Toyota GR Supra 3.0T
This year’s winners were selected from a group of 11 finalists that were announced last year.
The 25 COTY jurors voted for the finalists, including Drive360 / IOL journalists Pritesh Ruthun and Jason Woosey. Jury members tested most of the finalists on the Zwartkops race track, as well as on nearby public roads in early March, before completing the complete score sheets for each vehicle.
In order for the competition to be fair, given the wide variety of participants, the finalists are not rated relative to the other finalists, but are compared to their segment rivals.
Check out the winner’s announcement below:
IOL Motoring
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