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.