German Trumps Car Rivals

The Age

Friday November 30, 2007

Ian Porter, Motoring Writer

FOR the second successive year, the Drive Car of the Year award has gone to a performance car made by a German manufacturer.

The BMW M3 received the award last night, defeating the reigning champion - in its class and overall - the Audi TT TFSI coupe.

While only 400 Australians will be able to buy an M3 next year, the judges from The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Drive.com.au considered that the M3 was a worthy winner as it offered a larger step forward in its category than any other car under consideration. It was close, though.

The $157,000 BMW may have been one of the most expensive, most powerful and fastest cars in the 44-vehicle showdown, but it only just squeaked into top spot after surviving a dead heat in the crucial last vote and winning on a count back.

It was pushed all the way by a car costing just one-fifth as much, Ford's new $30,000 Mondeo sedan, which also gained four votes in the final round.

The Belgium-built Mondeo - also engineered in Germany - appealed to the judges because of its cabin size, its safety features and confidence-building road manners.

The judges used a number of criteria to assess each of the 44 cars against their direct rivals in each of the 13 categories. The criteria were also used to measure the disparate category winners to determine the car of the year.

The yardsticks used included technical elements, such as fuel efficiency, what the cars were like to drive, value for money and safety.

All category winners will be published in Drive tomorrow.