Volkswagen Golf, Ford F-150 Win Car, Truck Of The Year Awards
The 2015 North American Car and Truck of the Year awards went to the Volkswagen Golf and Ford F-150, as announced at the Detroit auto show.
The Golf’s victory was the second NACTOY win for Volkswagen. The New Beetle won in 1999. The previous-edition Golf was a finalist in 2010, but lost to the Ford Fusion Hybrid.
In a somewhat controversial move, the NACTOY jury decided to include the Golf TDI diesel and GTI hot-hatch variants as part of the Golf’s categorization. In winning, the Golf surpassed the Ford Mustang and Hyundai Genesis.
A significant number of people thought the Mustang would win, so the Golf’s victory was somewhat of a surprise.
Not as startling was the F-150’s victory. The F-150 was the eighth truck win for Ford, and this is the fourth win for the F-150.
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Much of the praise went to the new F-150’s aluminum body and bed construction, which saves upward of 700 pounds of weight. New Ecoboost engines also provide improved fuel economy and performance.
The awards come from a jury of 57 automotive journalists—one vote apiece for each automotive magazine, major online entity, or significant freelance automotive author.
In deciding among the finalists, jurors were given 10 “points” to split among the finalists, based on design, features, performance, safety, and value. The results were tabulated by the auditing firm Deloitte and kept secret until the announcement.
This is the first year that Consumer Reports has participated in the NACTOY awards. We felt it was an effective way to be a part of this debate—separate and apart from our own objective tests at our 327-acre test track in Connecticut.
Consumer Reports gave its points predominantly to the Volkswagen Golf and Ford F-150.
For the first time since 2009, there were no Japanese-brand vehicles among the finalists— even though three Japanese cars and four trucks were among the nominees, including a couple that scored very well in our tests. These differing opinions are what make the NACTOY awards so egalitarian in nature.
