2009 Canadian Car of the Year, the Countdown begins !
The international accounting firm KPMG today announced the top three finalists for overall 2009 Canadian Car of the Year and the Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year honours.
The winners will be declared on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 during media day at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. The winners of the Best New Design award and the Best New Technology award, presented by Shell Canada, will also be declared at that time.
The top three finalists for 2009 Canadian Car of the Year are the Hyundai Genesis, Mazda6 and the Toyota Corolla
The top three finalists for 2009 Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year are the Ford Flex, Mercedes-Benz M-Class, and the Subaru Forester
The top three finalists for 2009 Best New Design are the Honda Fit, Jaguar XF Supercharged and the Volkswagen Passat CC.
The top three finalists for 2009 Best New Technology are the General Motors OnStar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, the Infiniti Around View Monitor and the Mitsubishi Super-All-Wheel Control
AJAC’s annual Canadian Car of the Year awards program was created by our automotive journalists in 1985 for the purpose of providing consumers with a valuable resource to assist them while shopping for a new vehicle - comparative information on vehicles new to the market, grouped within cross-shopping sets.
For that reason, the detailed voting results are available to consumers on the AJAC web site as well as comparative test data obtained during the extensive five day evaluation of more than 160 new vehicles at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario in October. This rigorous evaluation process includes real world driving on public roads on a variety of routes developed to reflect where and how the average consumer would drive the different classes of vehicle.
Research has revealed that AJAC’s Canadian Car and Utility Vehicle of the Year program has been embraced by the intended market – Canadian consumers. The most recent of these studies, conducted by Maritz Research, on behalf of AJAC and in association with General Motors of Canada Ltd., surveyed buyers of the 2008 Buick Enclave to determine awareness of the award. The Enclave was named Best New SUV over $60,000 in last year’s event. Fully 74% of Enclave buyers were aware of the AJAC Awards program when they purchased their vehicles. Of those buyers, 41% said the award had a positive influence on their buying decision.