The South African Guild of Motoring Journalists awarded Honda’s Accord 2,4i Executive the title of Car of the Year for 2009 on Tuesday, after a stringent and exhaustive process that included testing of the finalists by the Coty panel.
The majority of the evaluation process took place at the Gerotek vehicle test facility outside Pretoria, where the contenders, launched between October 2007 and October 2008, were evaluated against their segment rivals rather than directly against each other.
The nine other finalists (including another Honda offering, the Jazz 1,5 EX), were the
Ford Fiesta 1,6 Trend 5-door, Suzuki Swift 1,5 GLS, Mazda6 2,5 Individual, Jaguar XF 3,0 V6 automatic, Volkswagen Tiguan 1,4TSi Trend&Fun 4Motion, Audi A4 1,8T Ambition Multitronic, Honda Accord 2,4i Executive and the Suzuki SX4 2,0.
The Coty competition highlights automotive excellence and the winning car scored highly its class across a variety of categories including those that reflect value for money, safety, dynamics, technology and aesthetics.
This isn’t the first time Hondas have performed well in the competition. The Civic saloon was honoured with the award in 2007, the CR-V was a finalist in 2008 and previous Accord and Jazz models also made the grade as Coty finalists.
“The Accord’s victory in the SA Car of the Year contest is particularly sweet, given the highly competitive market conditions, and the widely held expectation that the title would be bestowed on a compact contender,” says Honda SA managing director, Yoshiaki Nakamura.
“While buying trends are favouring smaller, more economical models, the Accord is a perfect example of how space, performance and luxury can be combined with frugality, efficiency and value to deliver a highly desirable and relevant motoring package,” Nakamura added.