Currently reading: Volkswagen Passat scoops 2015 Car of the Year award

German manufacturer fends off competition from BMW, Citroën, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Renault to win the prestigious COTY award

The Volkswagen Passat has been named the 2015 Car of the Year at the Geneva motor show.

The German car topped a shortlist of seven vehicles, beating the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer, Citroën C4 Cactus, Ford Mondeo, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Nissan Qashqai and Renault Twingo.

The award is decided by a jury made up of prominent motoring journalists from across Europe, including Autocar's head of video and features Matt Prior and senior contributing writer Andrew Frankel.

The jury consists of 58 members, representing 22 European countries. National representation on the jury is related to the size of the country's car market and its importance in car manufacturing. France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain each have six members, while other countries have proportionally fewer.

Volkswagen's Passat received 340 points from the judges, comprehensively beating its rivals.

The Citroën C4 Cactus garnered 248 points, ahead of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class on 221. Fourth was the Ford Mondeo with 203, with the Nissan Qashqai (160), BMW 2 Series Active Tourer (154) and Renault Twingo (124) rounding out the scoring.

The Passat succeeds the Peugeot 308 as the Car of the Year.

Get the latest car news, reviews and galleries from Autocar direct to your inbox every week. Enter your email address below:

Advertisement

Read our review

Car review

The VW Passat is a competent family car - but does it show any flair, and does it stand out amongst established executive saloons from BMW, Audi and Mercedes?

Join the debate

Comments
8
Add a comment…
robhardyuk 3 March 2015

VW Haters

God this must upset the skoda fan boys on here... A better product winning an award
mattlad 2 March 2015

Yawn......

Yawn......
EndlessWaves 2 March 2015

Not very strong competition this year.

I recently rode in the rear of the new Passat and didn't find it particularly comfortable. Even through I'm not a tall person the floor was set too high (or the seat too low). The boot is the usual disappointingly narrow affair too, but that's an almost ubiquitous problem among estates at the moment.

The rest of the list isn't particularly exciting either but I'm surprised the C4 Cactus didn't win. It's not perfect, but it's faults seem more forgiveable.

Still, next year's award is shaping up to be more exciting.