Falcon wins NZ Car of the Year award

It’s the first time a Falcon has won the NZ Motoring Writers’ Guild award.

“It’s worth noting that the Falcon’s win is quite an achievement when you consider it was designed and built on a much tighter budget than any of the world cars which were also finalists,” says Guild president, Jacqui Madelin.

“A major point of difference with (the Guild’s) award is that it embodies the opinions of professionals in their field from across the country, each of whom has assessed the car on roads in their own region,” she says.

“The car that comes out winner must, therefore, excel from many different perspectives, and in a range of Kiwi-specific conditions.

“The FG-series Falcon does that, but is also noteworthy in other respects. It (was), for example, the first Australian- designed -and -built car to achieve the maximum five star occupant protection rating in ANCAP crash testing.”

The FG-series Falcon was one of nine finalists for this year’s New Zealand Car of the Year award, which is open to new models launched in New Zealand during the 12 months to November 1, 2008.

The others, in alphabetical order, were the Fiat 500, Honda Accord Euro, Hyundai i30, Jaguar XF, Mazda 6, Nissan X-Trail, Subaru Forester and Volkswagen Tiguan.

The Guild will present Ford New Zealand with the award, the Peter Greenslade Trophy, named after the late motoring editor of The Press in Christchurch. Greenslade was one of the instigators of the Car of the Year award in the late 1980s.