2007 Wheels Car of the Year

[motorsportnerd]

Couple of further points from the magazine.
The last line of the article on the Mondeo gives the very strong impression that it was a close second and that the Mercedes victory was far from unanimous. Wheels doesn't give the judge's picks or provide a points table, so its partly a case of reading between the lines. However, the quote was "So...why doesn't Mondeo win? Good question. There is no identifiable single issue, more a combination of minor annoyances and some niggles. It was a very close-run thing though - and deservedly so." (my italics). I'd love to see the final voting tally/points system to see just how close.
In years gone by, Wheels used to provide the judges votes, but it has never provided any points tables to see how the cars do against the criteria. They were criticised for not providing the readers with this information last year after the VE beat the 3-series coupe and Aurion. At least this time they're not to make out that the vote for the C-Class was unanimous.

And the Mazda2 article was also interesting. Seems it was virtually unanimous favourite to win after the testing at Holden's Lang Lang proving ground was complete. However, the road section in Victoria's Mornington Peninsula was its undoing. It was very wet. And the standard 14-inch Yokohama tyres on the base Mazda2 Neo were found to have "An appalling lack of grip in the wet"...."The contrast with the grippier 15 and 16 inch Toyo rubber on the Maxx and Genki was dramatic".
No doubt Wheels knows that the tyres can be changed, but probably felt that it couldn't give the award to the Mazda2 on safety grounds considering that most 2s are fitting with the Yokohama tyres. Thus, "the 2 fell from favourite to also-ran in one morning. The 2 is the best car in the class, but until Mazda rectifies the base tyre issue, our recommendation will be limited to the excellent Maxx and Genki.". Probably just as well a wet road section wasn't first. The 2 might not have made it to the top 3.

As for the C-Class? Well, the sum up is "Beyond the headline safety features, however, the C-Class has the essential engineering honesty, the almost total lack of superficiality that the Wheels COTY judges love. It's simply a brilliantly function car."
A deserving victory and it will be popular and largely uncontroversial. Unlike last year when the debate over whether the VE win was deserved raged for months on the Wheels website.

[fpv_gtho]

Ive been waiting for months for some accident to highlight the defficiencies in ESP. Thankfully, the first major one came under the controlled circumstances of COTY. Its one thing to bang-on about the life saving abilities of these systems when in the hands of inexperienced drivers, but these systems arent perfect and can arguably cause crashes through a threshold that activates either too early or too late. Its almost ironic it had to be a Toyota which had to have their system shown to be flawed in certain circumstances, although the majority of biased "enthusiasts" will simply pocket it for further ammunition against the Japanese giant. It seems a bit pre-emptive for Wheels to brag about the feature needing to be standard fitment from 2010 for models to be eligible. These systems obviously need more fine tuning before they really can be marketed as life saving.

[IBrake4Rainbows]

In my opinion Wheels put as much faith in the ESP system as any un-educated and improperly trained driver would.

If a Trained driver (albeit driving very poorly) messes up, whats the guess a HausFrau would do something very similar?

[2ndclasscitizen]

Originally Posted by IBrake4Rainbows

In my opinion Wheels put as much faith in the ESP system as any un-educated and improperly trained driver would.

If a Trained driver (albeit driving very poorly) messes up, whats the guess a HausFrau would do something very similar?

Pretty much. It's not as though every bad driving incident/evasive maneuver/etc. is going to be done in accordance to International Standards now is it? That's what the **** ESP is for?

Though, 100kmh powerslides. In a Kluger.

Australia's like, WTF mate?

[IBrake4Rainbows]

100kp/h powerslides?

Funnily enough your Kangaroo Adage is quite fitting. Not everyone knows not to swerve dramatically

[clutch-monkey]

Originally Posted by 2ndclasscitizen

Though, 100kmh powerslides. In a Kluger.

Australia's like, WTF mate?

probably the best use for all klugers, especially if it ends with a bang.

[IBrake4Rainbows]

Barrel roll. Lol.

[SlickHolden]

Did someone call me??