To achieve this top honour at the 10th Indian Car of the Year, the Hyundai Elite i20 had to go head to head with Maruti Suzuki’s new mid-segment sedan Ciaz and Honda Motor’s flagship car, the new Honda City. Though the competition was tough the result was no surprise to us. In less than four months of its launch the Hyundai Elite i20 was among the top selling cars receiving over 60,000 bookings and more than 32,000 buyers.
With this new accolade Hyundai has become the first car manufacturer to win this grand award for two successive years, with the 2014 ICOTY award going to Grand i10. Also Hyundai is the only car manufacturer to have won this award thrice since ICOTY’s decade long existence. (Hyundai Elite i20 in 2014, Hyundai Grand i10 in 2013 and Hyundai i10 in 2008)
Commenting on the occasion, Mr. BS Seo-MD & CEO, Hyundai Motors India Limited said, “We are honoured to win the most prestigious automotive award – The Indian car of the Year 2015 for our world-class product Elite i20. Winning 2 successive ICOTY awards symbolizes Hyundai’s commitment to Indian customers by offering world class standards of quality products, design and branding. With this, we intend to thank all our customers, media and jurors who have chosen Elitei20 as the Indian Car of the year and made Hyundai as the most loved and trusted car manufacturer in India and global markets. With such a challenging spirit, we will be consistently pursuing the development of Modern Premium technologies to innovate at every step to strengthen our brand globally and our brands with the customers.”
The jury members of this year’s ICOTY included Bob Rupani (Chairman), Yogendra Pratap (Auto Bild), Rahul Ghosh (Auto Bild), Dhruv Behl (Auto X), Arup Das (Auto X), Rohin Nagrani (Motoring World), Kartik Ware (Motoring World), Aspi Bhathena (Car India), Aninda Sarda (Car India), Bertrand D'souza (Overdrive), Halley Prabhakar (Overdrive), Girish Karkera (BBC Top Gear), Murali Menon (BBC Top Gear), Sirish Chandran (Evo India), Ouseph Chacko (Evo India) and Muralidhar Swaminathan (The Hindu Business Line).
“The 2015 “Indian Car of the Year” title represents the most prestigious recognition for the Elite i20, which embodies the Hyundai’s values of excellence. In our collective votes it has come out on top as a whole package which has led its way from innovation, design, superior technology, safety and value for money. It was very challenging to select one product for from the entire line-up of the contenders, since all the products have done very well in their respective segments and I am happy to see a car as good as the Elite i20 being awarded as ICOTY 2015.” Mr. Bob Rupani, Founder Member ICOTY & Chairman of the Jury, Indian Car of the Year 2015 said congratulating the winning car Elite i20.
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