The Ford Focus is justifiably the country’s most popular new car and has just been voted for the second year running as the “Used Car of the Year” in the Auto Express Glass’s Guide Used Car Honours for 2008. Significantly, the judges were unanimous in their decision to award the top accolade to the Focus.
This overall win comes on top of the Focus winning its own class as “Compact Family Car of the Year” and its bigger sibling the Mondeo being voted as “Family Car of the Year”.
Jeff Paterson, Chief Car Editor at EurotaxGlass’s and a key member of the judging panel for the awards, said, “The Ford Focus has again proved itself to be not only a top seller as a new car but also a great second-hand buy. Its ubiquity on our roads does nothing to dampen its desirability, and it means that used car buyers have a wide range of examples to choose from. Good residual values, decent equipment levels and a widely-acknowledged ability to entertain drivers all make the Focus a sound purchase and a worthy two-time winner of this award.”
BMW also picked up 3 awards, with the 3-Series taking the “Compact Executive” and “Coupe” awards and the 5-Series picking up the gong in “Executive” class.
The judges panel was made up of independent motor industry experts, and representatives of Auto Express. Valuation data and information on cost of ownership was provided by Glass’s Guide publisher EurotaxGlass’s. The judges looked at every car that has been on sale since January 2007 to identify the best model available to used car buyers in every category.
The winners by classification are as follows and all awards were for current models, except for the Ford Mondeo.
- Small car – Peugeot 107
- Supermini – Renault Clio
- Compact family car – Ford Focus
- Family car – Ford Mondeo
- Compact executive car – BMW 3-Series
- Executive car – BMW 5-Series
- Large executive car – Mercedes-Benz CLS
- Estate car – Skoda Octavia
- Roadster – Mazda MX-5
- Cabriolet – Audi A4 Cabriolet
- Coupé – BMW 3-Series
- Compact SUV – Toyota RAV4
- Premium SUV – Land Rover Discovery 3
- Compact MPV – Vauxhall Zafira
- Sporting car – Porsche 911
- Hot hatch – Volkswagen Golf GTI
- Used Car of the Year – Ford Focus
