What's the news?
The Citroen C3 Aircross, Ford Fiesta, Honda Civic, Opel Grandland X, SEAT Ibiza, and Volkswagen T-Roc have been announced as the six finalists for the Autobest 2018 award. All six cars will compete for the prize of being named 'Best Buy Car of Europe in 2018', by a jury of 31 members. Ireland is represented by CompleteCar.ie's Road Test Editor, Dave Humphreys.
On 29 & 30 November, all jury members will conduct extensive back-to-back testing of all six finalists at the Vairano proving ground, near Milan, Italy. Following this votes will be cast, and the winning car will be announced in December. All voting results from the process will be published online.
"This year no less than six outstanding cars convinced the Jury members to make it into the final. So, we have six finalists for the Best Buy Car of Europe in 2018," said Dan Vardie, Founder and Chairman of the Autobest organisation.
Anything else?
Ahead of the main award, four category winners have been announced covering design, environmental and green products, technology, and safety. The 'Designbest 2017' award goes to Marek Reichman, the Chief Designer and Chief Creative Officer at Aston Martin Lagonda. Reichman has made a significant contribution to the success of the Aston Martin brand and during his tenure has penned some of the company's most iconic cars.
The 'Ecobest 2017' award goes jointly to the PSA Group, Bureau Veritas, France Nature Environment (FNE) and Transport & Environment, the Brussels based organisation, for its work on producing real-world consumption test results. At a time when the car industry is under increased scrutiny concerning vehicle emissions, this project worked to show consumers more realistic results.
Spanish car maker and overall Autobest 2017 winner, SEAT, has already picked up the 'Smartbest 2017' award for its introduction of Alexa into its cars. The partnership with Amazon brings one of the most advanced voice recognition systems and connected technology to the mainstream market.
Recognising the widespread rollout of its Safety Sense system to almost its entire range of cars, Toyota earns the prestigious 'Safetybest 2017' award. The company has brought a high level of active safety systems to the vast majority of its vehicles sold throughout Europe - 92 per cent to be precise. Safety Sense includes Pre-Collision with Autonomous Emergency Braking, Automatic High Beam and Lane Departure Warning among its features.