Polo, the First VW Car of the Year in 18 Years

As we told you on Monday, the Volkswagen Polo has been chosen Car of the Year 2010 in Europe and, as promised, we come back on the story to give an idea of the reasons which led to this title. Being the first Volkswagen to win the award in 18 years, the Polo had to have had some impressive features to please the 59 jurors.

According to the Car of the Year (COTY) organization, the Polo was chosen by 25 members of the jury as their favorite car. As you know by now, the scaled-down Golf, as it was seen by COTY, managed to gather 347 points, winning in front of Toyota's iQ by a margin of only ten points.

Now, let's get into it. The jurors found that the Polo, despite being shorter than its competitors in the B segment, is fully capable of "accommodating at least four adult people in comfort." The Polo provides "room, refinement and a reasonable cargo space," while the cabin, together with its an unprecedented level of interior quality, is of "impeccable execution."

As for the engine, the jurors mostly looked at energy efficiency and found that the Polo offers "an interesting line of engines, and also the pleasant-to-use DSG automatic/sequential transmission, with two clutches."

"It was the Polo’s comprehensive safety equipment and its advanced range of engines that impressed us the most. On the Polo BlueMotion Volkswagen was also able to add a very fuel-efficient yet affordable car to its car programme," Hakan Matson, president of the jury said.

The COTY award is not the first for the new Polo. So far, Polo's trophy case includes Best Car 2009 (Auto Motor und Sport), Grune (Golden Steering Wheel) and the Auto Trophy (Autozeitung).

Of course, we have an opinion on the new Polo as well. You can learn how the autoevolution team found the Polo to be by following this link to the test drive we did this summer.