Come hell or high water, they came

Braving and enduring the horrific traffic gridlocks last Friday that started as early as lunchtime, top executives of the local automotive industry with their associates in tow trooped to the Valle Verde Country Club to witness the giving out of this year’s prestigious Auto Focus People’s Choice and Media’s Choice Awards for the country’s most preferred and most popular automobiles.

The Japanese car companies’ top executives came in full force with Mitsubishi Motors Philippines president, Mr. Yoshiaki Kato, Isuzu Philippines Corporation president, Mr. Hajime Koso, Honda Cars Philippines president, Mr. Toshio Kuwahara, Lexus-Manila president, Mr. Danny “Sir John” Isla and Mazda Philippines ceo Mr. Steven Tan.

The European brands were also represented with the presence of their top executives like the lovely lady president of BMW Philippines, Ms. Maricar Parco who was there with Asian Carmakers immediate past president, Mr. Bobby Rosales, Auto Nation Group (Mercedes-Benz) chairman, Mr. Greg Yu, Volkswagen Philippines president, Mr. John Philip “JP” Orbeta and Peugeot Philippines president, Mr. Glen Dasig. 

The top marketing executives of the other major automobile brands like Ford, Chevrolet, BYD, Volvo, Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki, Nissan, Subaru, PGA Cars, Toyota and Volvo made the complete representation of the country’s automobile manufacturers and importers in the annual institutional industry event.

Those who came were one in saying that they find the event so important to miss due to its significance to the industry and for this we at Sunshine TV would like to say, “Thank you.”

To serve as a bit of a background, the Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards, which started in 2005 is a form of recognition of the country’s most preferred models in each vehicle category such as sedans, SUVs, pickups, vans, sports cars and MPVs as well as the most popular vehicle among all these or the “Automobile of the Year” in both Standard and Luxury models for each given year.

To determine this, unit sales of each model from January to September, as reported by Stradcom, the official IT provider of the LTO (Land Transportation Office) are combined with votes cast by the public online with a value distribution of 20 percent for sales and 80 percent for votes.

The objective of the yearly exercise is to serve as a sounding board for the local auto industry as to the automobile preference of the motoring public and perhaps also a guide as to what automobile models to bring to the Philippine market. 

On the other hand, the Media’s Choice Awards, which was conceived several years after reflect the judgment of the members of the local motoring media as to what vehicle models have the best attributes in terms of design, engine performance, safety features and value for money. The declaration of winners is quite stringent considering that a majority vote by the media is not enough; the declared winner should have more than 50 percent of the total votes cast. 

Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards 2015 -2016

The Standard Category awards were dominated by Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) which cornered 6 of the 11 “Model of the Year” titles: Wigo (Subcompact); Corolla Altis (Compact Sedan); Innova (Multi-purpose Vehicle/MPV); Fortuner (Midsize SUV); Prado (Large SUV) and HiAce (Van).

Ford Philippines bagged 2 awards: EcoSport (Compact SUV) and Ranger (Pickup). The Honda Accord (Midsize Sedan), Subaru WRX STI (Sports Car) and the Peugeot 3008 (Open) completed the list of Standard “Model of the Year” honorees.

In the Model of the Year - Luxury Category, Lexus Manila did even better than last year by reeling in 7 awards: IS350 (Luxury Compact); ES350 (Luxury Midsize Sedan); LS460L (Luxury Large Sedan); RCF (Luxury Sports Car), NX200t (Luxury Compact SUV), GX460 (Luxury Midsize) and LX570 (Luxury Large SUV). Along with TMP’s Toyota Alphard (Luxury Van), the Lexus IS350, ES350, LS460L and LX570 are now the first back-to-back annual winners in their categories.

Volkswagen Philippines landed 2 awards: Golf GTI (Luxury Subcompact) and Touran (Luxury Multi-purpose Vehicle/MPV). Rounding out the luxury honors list was the Volvo V40 Cross Country in the Luxury Open classification.

The Media’s Choice Awards, here are the winners:

Best Safety Features: 10 Awardees

Honda Jazz (Subcompact); Subaru WRX STI (Sports Car); Ford Explorer (Large SUV); Porsche Cayenne (Luxury Large SUV); Honda Mobilio (MPV); Volkswagen Touran (Luxury MPV); Kia Carnival (Van); Toyota Alphard (Luxury Van); Ford Ranger (Pickup), Subaru XV (Open)

Best Value-for Money: 9 Awardees

Suzuki Swift (Subcompact); Volkswagen Golf GTI (Luxury Subcompact); Ford Mustang (Sports Car); Isuzu mu-X (Midsize SUV); Volkswagen Touareg (Luxury Midsize SUV); Nissan Urvan (Van); Honda Odyssey (Luxury Van); Isuzu DMax (Pick-up); Mitsubishi ASX (Open)

Best Engine Performance: 9 Awardees

Volkswagen Golf GTI (Luxury Subcompact); Mazda 3 (Compact); BMW 5-Series (Luxury Midsize Sedan); Subaru WRX STI (Sports Car); Porsche Macan (Luxury Compact SUV); Volkswagen Touareg (Luxury Midsize SUV); Ford Explorer (Large SUV); Volkswagen Touran (Luxury MPV); Toyota Alphard (Luxury Van)

Best Design: 12 Awardees

Honda Jazz (Subcompact); Mercedes Benz A-Class (Luxury Subcompact); Mazda 3 (Compact); Mazda 6 (Midsize Sedan); Peugeot RCZ (Sports Car); Nissan XTrail (Midsize SUV); Toyota FJ Cruiser (Midsize SUV); Volkswagen Touareg (Luxury Midsize SUV); Ford Explorer (Large SUV); Volkswagen Touran (Luxury MPV); Kia Carnival (Van); Volvo XC70 (Luxury Open)

This yearly exercise, despite being on its 11th year still go through a lot of innovations with the end view of coming up with the most ideal method to accurately determine the country’s most preferred and popular automobile models and next year would not be an exception.

The process would be further simplified by allowing the public to vote for only one to a maximum of ten of their most liked car models daily instead of going through the entire array of categories. All the votes cast shall be assigned to their individual categories and the model with the most number of votes combined with their unit sales with the same assigned value of 20 percent for sales and 80 percent for votes shall be proclaimed the title winner. Furthermore, the voting website shall be so designed to allow votes to be cast conveniently from smart phones.

Congratulations to this year’s winners.

Happy Motoring!!!

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