Henny Hemmes Comment's On 2015 World Car Awards Winners and Losers

Editors' Note: Henny Hemmes The Auto Channel's Senior European Editor is a jury member for World Car Of The Year and has graciously given us an insiders look at the 2015 winners and losers.

By Henny Hemmes
Senior European Editor

New York, April 2, 2015; Until the very moment of the presentation of the World Car Awards on the second media day of the New York International Auto Show, nobody knows what the ballots, cast by the 75 international jurors have lead to. That is, only the five members of the WCA steering committee know which cars are the winners in each of the five categories.

After KPMG has received the secret ballots in February, the accountants firm processes them, and shortly before the award presentation event, they send the outcome to the WCA. That way the announcement of the award winners will be a surprise to all attendants, indeed, including the jurors.

But we are not completely left in the blue, as the three finalists in each category have already been announced in March at the Geneva Motor Show and they are presented in the assigned area of the New York show’s home in the Jacob Javits Center. The three finalists for the World Car of the Year are lined up at the stage.

This year, Mercedes-Benz had a finalist in each category, which is quite an achievement in itself. But it also shows that the company offers the same models on markets world wide, in the same trim and with the same standard equipment. Anyway, we could expect at least one of their cars to win an award, one? no way!

Christoph Horn, Mercedes Director of Global communications, went back to Stuttgart with three trophies! I think Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Daimler’s Chairman of the Board and Head of Mercedes-Benz cars would have loved to have been with us to accept the three trophies. He also would have entertained the audience with a few nice comments. But neither Zetsche, nor any other board member could be in New York because of the annual shareholder’s meeting in Berlin last Wednesday.

Mercedes took the 2015 World Car of the Year title with the C-Class leaving both the Ford Mustang and Volkswagen Passat empty handed. I can think of some reasons why. The brand new generation Passat was nominated because it is available – according to the WCA regulations – on two continents and I believe made it to the final three because of its new technology and premium quality. But the fact that the new model Passat has not yet arrived on the North American market, may have been the reason it missed the necessary votes to make it this year’s winner.

I know from talks with my colleagues that everybody loves the new Ford Mustang. However, if you look at the technology with respect to safety and driver assistant systems, the C-Class is really ahead of the Mustang as well as the reat of its competition, therefore, I believe the C-Class is a justified winner.

This advanced technology also goes for the Mercedes GT that won the award for the Performance Car of the Year. The successor to the SLS has been developed and engineered by Mercedes’ performance division AMG GmbH to stand its ground aand excel against two strong competitors, the BMW M4/M3 and the Jaguar F-Type R Coupe. As I did not drive the GT yet, I could not judge this model, but the BMW-Jaguar battle to me was more of an ex-aequo as both cars had their pros and cons in fractions of points. It must have been the same with the Mercedes, resulting in its better count.

The third model that got Mercedes an award was the S-Class in the category of Luxury Car of the Year, where it met the BMW i8 and the Range Rover Autobiography Black LWB. I discarded the Range Rover as it was a variant (this must have escaped our attention). In my opinion, the S Coupe really deserves to win as it offers more luxury than the i8, although I very much love the hybrid BMW sports car.

But the latter won the 2015 World Green Car an award that is well deserved. BMW really dotted the i with the designated futuristic design that features an aluminum construction, CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) body and intelligent hybrid drive system. It thus remained ahead of the Mercedes S 500 Plug-in Hybrid, that is not bad at all either and the Volkswagen Golf GTE that also offers excellent green technology.

The last of the five categories is the World Design of the Year. Here, the Citroën C4 Cactus was pronounced the winner. It had to compete with the C-Class and the Volvo XC90.

Personally, I like the design of the C-Class, it is elegantly dynamic, while I think the huge Volvo is in itself a nice looking car, they cannot match the new design ideas that were implemented in the Citroën Cactus. The Cactus was my number one and that obviously also was case with many of my judging colleagues.

Alexandre Malvan, Directeur du style Citroën, who accepted the WCA trophy for his company, had arrived in New York just a couple of hours before the award presentation. Due to an internal mis-communication in the Paris office, Citroën had not seen the WCA’s e-mails to remind them to bring the Cactus to New York. It was not until Wednesday morning that they opened the messages addressed to the director for global communications who had left the company in February. No harm done, as that evening Mr. Malvan and Estelle Rouvrais, communications director for France, hopped on a plane to arrive at the show. Just in time.

Of course, Alexandre Malvan was happy and proud with the award. “It is an honor to be here and to receive this design award. The Cactus is a representative of the new style of our company,” he said. Malvan is responsible for the design of all Citroën models, including the recently split off DS luxury line.

As we sat down for an interview directly after the award presentations were finished, he texted his team with the good news and received a message from CEO Citroën Linda Jackson who congratulated him for the the award result. “It means a lot, when you have a prize that is an international recognition,” the Frenchman said. “It means a lot to the complete design team and all the engineers involved in the development of the Cactus.

Citroën have been able to take the risk to develop something new and push the project further. Especially Eric Behr, the chief engineer, stayed focused. It was difficult sometimes, especially when the airbag in the roof did not work in the first crash test. That meant the project was going to be postponed for one year…” He continued: “Any type of innovation is a moment of stress. But maybe you know the saying ‘a beaten path is for beaten men’

We did have our moments of stress, but the Cactus represents the contrary, it is not a stressful car. Inside, the atmosphere is light, uncomplicated. And when driving it, you do not need worry about scratches caused during parking or from passing bicycles. “I am really pleased with the award, because it shows our strategy is giving us an advantage. Everything nowadays is about sporty cars, luxury. What has been lacking so far are cars like the 2 CV or the later SM and CX, with simple spirit and flair. That is something the Cactus has brought back. “

For those of you in North America who are not familiar with the Cactus here is my 2015 Citroën Review, will the Cactus become available for drivers across the sea? Stay tuned.