Royal Ford
Royal Ford covers the automotive beat for GlobalPost. Ford spent the past decade as the automotive writer for the Boston Globe. In his 30 years at the Globe, he also served as a copy editor,...
Here come the Koreans: North American Car of the Year
As I have long written in this changing world of autos, "here come the Koreans."
Well, here they are, bold evidence of a malleable global automotive marketplace.
For the first time, a Korean car, the 2009 Hyundai Genesis, has been selected as North American Car of the Year.
And in further affirmation of the crucible that the international auto business has become, a solid standby, with roots in the 1940s and one of the most popular vehicles on the planet, the Ford F-150 pickup truck, was named 2009 North American Truck of the Year.
Also noteworthy is that the three finalists in both categories each included a new, clean-diesel vehicle.
A select jury of 50 automotive journalists from the United States and Canada (including me, for full disclosure), made the choices among new or significantly altered vehicles designed to recognize the most outstanding in their class.
The judges consider innovation, design, safety, handling, driver satisfaction and value for the dollar. Because the vehicles are new, reliability cannot be a factor.
The awards are unique in the United States because they are given by automotive journalists who represent magazines, television, radio, newspapers and websites instead of a single publication.
Also, the awards are financed entirely by the jurors through dues, unlike awards handed out by other judging panels.
The winners, announced Sunday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, were chosen from three finalists in each category: The Ford Flex, Hyundai Genesis and the diesel Volkswagen Jetta TDI in the car competition. The truck finalists were the Dodge Ram, the Ford F-150, and the Mercedes-Benz ML320 BlueTEC, another diesel.
Last year the North American Car of the Year was the Chevrolet Malibu and the North American Truck of the Year was the Mazda CX-9.
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