Jaguar XF, History’s First Women’s World Car of the Year

Jaguar XF has won the first Women’s World Car of the Year, a title awarded by an international group of 8 female motoring journalists.

They conceived this award in November 2008 as a response to the fact that the judging panel in charge of the 2007 U.S. Car Of the Year Award was an exclusively masculine staff.

“We searched for quite a while to gather together women motoring writers who could qualify to vote for this award and it wasn’t easy because female motor journalists aren’t exactly thick on the ground,” chief judge, New Zealander Sandy Myhre, declared.

A group of 21 vehicles have been tested over the past year. The automobiles have been judged by some rather unconventional criteria, as far as male automotive journalists are concerned: child-friendliness, sex appeal, ease of driving , safety, color and value for money.

The Jaguar XF won the overall Car of the Year award thanks to its comfort, build quality and balance between sport and luxury, but there were also four other categories :

Family Car of the Year: Volvo XC60 (Runner-up: Honda Accord)
Sports Car of the Year: Audi TTS (Runner-up: Mazda MX-5)
Economy Car of the Year: Volkswagen Golf Diesel (Runner-up: Ford Fiesta)
Luxury Car of the Year: Jaguar XF (Runner-up: Audi A6)

Here at autoevolution we like to offer our readers a complex view of the automotive world by having representatives of both genders in the editorial team (please don’t question the proportion though), therefore we salute the WWCOTY award.