Ford Focus RS is Auto Trader Used Car of the Year
Author: Robin Brown
Published: 30 October 2007
The Ford Focus RS has been announced Used Car of the Year at the first ever Auto Trader awards.
The inaugural awards judged cars in six categories, including Family Car; Sports Car; Hot Hatch; Supermini; Luxury Car; and SUV. Auto trader readers and ITV4´s Used Car Roadshow viewers voted for the winners on a range of criteria including comfort, reliability, running costs, practicality, image and driving pleasure.
The Focus RS received the highest number of points overall while each category winner received the highest marks in the respective category. The Focus RS also won best hot hatch.
Other winners included the Rover 75 - surprisingly taking the top family car spot over the Ford Focus and Mondeo; the Mitsubishi Ralliart FTO was an obscure choice as best sports car; the discontinued Audi A2 was best supermini and the Jaguar XJ and BMW X5 won best luxury and SUV respectively.
Host of the Auto Trader Used Car Awards, Jason Dawe, commented: "Competition has been really fierce and we’ve seen the leader board changing almost on a daily basis. There have been a couple of surprises as well - cars that the motoring journalists might not rate, but shrewd used car buyers know make a great purchase.
"We’ve also seen some of the ‘hot favourites’ fail to make the top three in their category, knocked off their perch beaten by humbler, and often cheaper alternatives."
The winners and runners up are as follows:
Family Car
• Winner: Rover 75 (Produced 1999-2004)
• 2nd place: Ford Focus (Produced 1998-2004)
• 3rd place: Ford Mondeo (Produced 2000-2005)
Sports Car
• Winner: Mitsubishi Ralliart FTO (Produced 2000-2002)
• 2nd place: Honda S2000 (Produced 1999 onwards)
• 3rd place: Mazda RX-8 (Produced 2003 onwards)
Hot Hatch
• Winner: Ford Focus RS (Produced 2002-2003)
• 2nd place: Honda Civic Type-R (Produced 2001-2005)
• 3rd place: Volkswagen Golf Mark IV GTi and R32 (Produced 1997-2004)
Supermini
• Winner: Audi A2 (Produced 2000-2005)
• 2nd place: Smart city car/fortwo (Produced 2000-2005)
• 3rd place: Mini One (Produced 2001-2004)
Luxury Car
• Winner: Jaguar XJ Series (Produced 2003 onwards)
• 2nd place: Audi A8 (Produced 2003 onwards)
• 3rd place: Jaguar V8 XJ Series (Produced 1997-2003)
SUV
• Winner: BMW X5 (Produced 2000-2005)
• 2nd place: Land Rover Discovery (Produced 1998-2004)
• 3rd place: Land Rover Freelander (Produced 1997-2005)
See Also:
Click here for more Ford stories
Click here for more Awards stories
Click here for more Hot Hatch stories
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FTO as Used Sports Car of the Year? Damn fine choice !