Hyundai Elantra has been awarded as the best car in North America in 2012 whereas the Evoque from Land Rover Range Rover has won the same award in the truck category. The names of the winners were disclosed on Monday morning vide a media conference at the Detroit Auto Show. 50 automobile journalists across Canada and United States formed a jury to choose the winners.
These awards have a unique feature of being selected by a group of auto journalists from various magazines, radio, newspapers, web sites and television across Canada and United States and are not restricted to any specific media outlet.
These awards have been instituted to award the best new vehicle launches. The awarded vehicles achieve benchmark levels in their respective segments and are chosen on the basis of multiple factors that include comfort, safety, design, innovation, handling, value for money as well as driver satisfaction.
Hyundai has won this award for the second time with its Genesis having secured the award in the year 2009. The Hyundai Sonata had been among the top three finalists in the previous year. This is, however, the first time that Land Rover has won this award, though the vehicle manufacturer had been able to make it to the finals two times previously. The Hyundai Elantra secured 174 points from the jury, which put it ahead of the Passat at 161 points with the Focus coming in third at 155. The Evoque comprehensively beat all competition by securing 254 points, with the second placed CR-V being way back at 142 points while the X3 rounded up the top three with 94 points.
