since 1976
since 1976
From Subaru Press Release
In a year that saw the coronavirus pandemic threaten to scuttle the staging of Japan’s Car of the Year awards altogether, a comprehensive reorganization of award procedures enabled manufacturers to provide contender cars to jurors for their evaluation and voting. In the first of two voting procedures, the award’s 60 jurors selected the 10 Best vehicles of the year in late November from over 30 contenders.
After attending a 10 Best drive day at Sodegaura Forest Raceway near Tokyo, jurors voted again to select the year’s best car. When counting was completed, the Subaru Levorg was pronounced the winner with 437 votes, beating the Toyota Yaris with 320 and the Honda Fit with 300 votes. The new Levorg is currently on sale only in Japan but the carmaker has plans to launch in Europe and Australia. Polling 141 votes, the highest for a foreign brand, the Peugeot 208/e-208 was named the Import Car of the Year 2020-2021.
According to the COTY steering committee, reasons for the Levorg’s win stemmed from the car’s award- winning Subaru Global Platform, as well as its employment of a new body, new 1.8-liter boxer turbo engine, and revised suspension, brakes and steering. Also highly praised by jurors was the new EyeSight X driver- assist system that now incorporates 4 cameras, a 360-degree field of sensing and 3D high-precision mapping data that now allows drivers to cruise ‘hands-off’ in heavy traffic at up to 50km/h.
“It is a great honor that the Levorg has been recognized with this distinctive award,” said Subaru Corporation president Tomomi Nakamura. “I would like to thank our customers and all other stakeholders for their continued support for Subaru.”
The Land Rover Defender came in 5th place with 105 votes, the Audi e-tron Sportback posted 65 voted for 6th, Mazda’s MX-30 received 63 voted for 7th, BMW Alpina B3 polled 25 votes, BMW’s 2-Series Gran Coupe got 24 votes and the Nissan Kicks finished with 20 votes. In the special awards categories, the Mazda MX-30 received the Design of the Year trophy, the BMW Alpina B3 captured the Performance award, the Audi e-tron picked up the Technology trophy and the jointly produced Nissan Roox and Mitsubishi eK Cross Space won the ‘K-car’ (660cc) category.
