Volvo XC60 is the ‘BEST New Car Launched in the UK in the Past Year’
The new Volvo XC60 has been declared the best car launched in the last year by readers of Autotrader in its annual car awards.
Yes, it’s another car awards roll-out – this time the Autotrader Awards – and another win for the Volvo XC60, with Autotrader’s readers voting it the best new car launched in the last year.
We have no gripe with the award; when we reviewed the new XC60 a couple of months ago we were properly impressed with how Volvo has managed to deliver an XC60 which perfectly encapsulated all that was great about the best-selling previous XC60, and mix in a lot of what makes the new XC90 so good too.
We’re not entirely sure why a car declared the best launched in the last year isn’t voted the Car of the Year too, but the award for that went to the Skoda Octavia, with Skoda also getting a gong for the Superb as best family car. How does that work?
Another oddity of the awards is the award for best City Car going to the not exactly compact Ford Kuga SUV, a car you wouldn’t think of as a good car for driving in town. But Autotrader’s readers obviously feel a high-riding lump is better in town than something compact and nippy. If that’s representative of UK drivers’ thought patterns, it explains the obsession with SUVs.
Other winners include the new Kia Rio as Best Value Car and Best for New Drivers, Hyundai Tucson as best for long distances, the award for most fun goes to the Mazda MX-5, Best Features goes to Nissan, Best Value Brand goes to Dacia, the Honda Civic gets ‘Best for Dogs’, most reliable is Lexus and most Green is the VW Passat GTE Estate.
There are some very sensible wins in there, but a lot are really left-field and hard to fathom.
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