Car awards are greatly sought after by manufacturers around the world — there’s no greater marketing pitch than a ‘Car of the Year’ title. In the competitive domestic market of Germany, it doesn’t get much better than the Yellow Angel award from Europe’s largest car club, ADAC. Unfortunately, the club admitted to meddling the numbers for this highly-coveted distinction on Monday.
I’ve always been one to sing the praises of diesel vehicles. North America has been hesitant to embrace them, but diesel cars tend to be more efficient and pack quicker acceleration. Unfortunately, it’s not always so bright and rosy. A number of Volkswagen and Audi owners have been reporting premature fuel pump failures in their diesel cars, enough to have prompted an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into the 2010 Audi A3, 2010 VW Golf, and 2009-2010 VW Jetta diesels.
Volkswagen and Audi are both recalling 168,275 TDI models due to the possibility of a fuel leak in the engine bay.
Volkswagen has finally released pricing for the US-spec Golf R, nearly a year after we found out the car would be coming to these shores. The range-topping Golf will set you back a rather pricey $33,990, excluding destination.
Volkswagen has announced that the Golf R will be sold in the US from 2012.
After a long internal struggle, Porsche has been chosen over Audi to oversee development of sports cars and luxury sedans for the Volkswagen Group.
Yes, this is the big one. The best car of the year. This must excel in everything. It should be able to satisfy the little child in you, while taking you shopping and your children to school safely and comfortably. Price shouldn’t be too high either.
Based on all these things, we have picked the overall winner for our 2009 Car of the Year. And the best car in 2009 was:
The jury for the North American Car and Truck of the Year have announced their finalists for 2010.
This is the most important part of the nominees list. This where the the Car of the Year nominees are listed. It’s not the longest list of nominees, but choosing should be hard, as all the contenders are quite good ones.
Car of the Year
Yes, this is the big one. The best car of the year. This must excel in everything. It should be able to satisfy the little child in you, while taking you shopping and your children to school safely and comfortably. Price shouldn’t be too high either.
Volkswagen Golf: Great looks, plenty of practicality, comfortable and it’s good fun, especially in GTI form.
Mazda3: The new small Mazda is based on the Ford Focus so it drives brilliantly. It’s also cheaper than the Ford, it’s built with the same quality and it looks good.
Vauxhall/Opel Astra: As they did with the Insignia, Opel/Vauxhall broke tradition (one more time) with the new Astra, giving it a modern design.
Mercedes-Benz E-Class: Alex isn’t a fan of the styling but the new E-Class offers a very complete package combined with classic Mercedes quality.
There you are then. All the nominees are now out there. We’ll be working on picking out the best of the best to bring you the winners. We’re already running into arguments, so it won’t be easy and we can’t predict when the winners will be released.
The first and the last Golf GTI's - probably 2 of the best from the bloodline.
This week, although a bit late, we have one of those great originals in the Car of the Week section – the VW Golf GTI. This is a car that revolutionised the world of hatchbacks, the very first hot-hatch. The GTI badge has been taken since then by a million companies and all the other tried to emulate the brilliance of the Golf GTI but none of them succeeded.
As it is a bit special this week, we won’t designate a specific Golf generations as the winner but 3: The GTI Mark I, V and VI – all of them brilliant, all of them worthy of the mighty GTI badge. You might wonder why? Why not all of them? Why just these random numbers: 1,5 and 6. Well, let me explain why. First of all, the Golf Mk. I was the original, the very first hot hatchback, one of the fastest cars at its time. It’s just brilliant: practical, good-looking in a subtle kind of way and fast like stink. However the next generations, the 2,3 and 4, all become more civilised and slower, eventually ending no longer as a hot hatchback but just as a normal one with a bit more power. VW got their act together though and the last 2 GTI’s, the 5 and the 6 were absolutely brilliant. Not the fastest anymore, but the best overall. Being the fastest today with cars like the Renault Megane R26.R is very hard while trying to keep practicality, so bear in mind the Renault is a hot-hatch, but transformed into a track day car.
Clean is the word I would use to describe the style of the very first GTI.
The Golf GTI offers you quite literally everything: from tedious practicality to insane speed, all in this decent, quite cheap package. The most amazing thing however is that the Mk. I Golf is one of the longest lasting cars in history having being produced from 1984 to 2009. Yup, until this year they were still making them in South Africa. It’s that good. And the fast, hot version is the best. It handles like a dream as it is quite a small car so weight isn’t a problem. Even though it’s front-wheel drive it’s responsive and accurate and corners neat and flat. Just brilliant. The first one may have been cheap at its time and sold like hot cakes, but it’s already a classic today, and a good one will set you back quite a lot more than you’d think for such a small car. Anyway, this is one of the best cars ever made so it’s definitely worth a shout in our Car of the Week section.
You don’t believe me? Then watch Jeremy Clarkson being seduced by the Golf in this classic video: