The Skoda Fabia has won the most prestigious motoring award in the UK – What Car? Car of the Year, in association with Warranty Direct.
The Czech model, which also won the Small Car category at last night’s ceremony, scooped the main prize exactly 15 years after winning it for the first time in 2000.
What Car?’s Car of the Year Awards are the most highly prized by manufacturers and the car-buying public alike. Awards are presented in 16 categories in total, but only the car that best delivers against the judging panel’s stringent criteria wins the overall Car of the Year prize.
The winning Skoda Fabia 1.2 TSI 90 SE model beat stiff competition from 25 other vehicles that made the overall Car of the Year shortlist. A full list of category winners can be seen here.
What Car?’s panel of judges praised the Fabia’s turbocharged 1.2-litre petrol engine, which combines punchy and flexible performance with impressive efficiency credentials.
It also beats its main rivals in the small car class – the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Polo – for both space and practicality, while the technology that comes as standard on the Fabia includes a brilliant 6.5-inch touchscreen display and a ‘Mirrorlink’ system that can sync with Android phones to provide sat nav.
What Car? editor, Jim Holder, said: "The Fabia is a fully deserved winner of our most sought after award – not only because of the fact that it is a well equipped and practical small car but also because of the big name rivals it has disposed of in the process.
'We’ve driven and evaluated all of its rivals and, whichever way you cut it, the Fabia is the most rounded small car on sale in the UK today."
A full list of category winners can be seen at whatcar.com/awards, but 2015 winners include another Skoda, the Skoda Octavia, in the Family Car sector, the Audi A3 e-tron (electric car), Citroën Grand C4 Picasso (MPV) and the Sunderland-built Nissan Qashqai which, as last year’s Car of the Year winner, is still a favourite in the small SUV category.
Land Rover’s Discovery Sport won the inaugural What Car? Car of the Year Safety Award, presented in conjunction with Thatcham Research, the UK’s only Euro NCAP crash test centre.
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Ibiza please
Given how right SEAT has got the Leon, the next Ibiza should also be a good'un!
Children.
The best keeps getting better.
All this on top of record 75,488 uk sales last year. Skoda are doing it right, something a lot of other manufacturers should take note of. If you purely buy a car based on looks, you obviously have very little knowledge of cars.At least the Skoda marque produces cars that dont age within 3 years, and they are build impeccably. Haters gonna hate, but Skoda have gone from strength to strength under VW Groups wing.