Hyundai , BMW and Hero Moto win big at ICOTY & IMOTY
It’s that time of the year when the most awaited announcement comes out regarding the Indian Car of the Year (ICOTY) for 2020 , Indian Motorcycle of The Year (IMOTY) and the award for Premium car of the year in 2020. ICOTY 2020 was bestowed upon the the Hyundai Venue, while the Premium Car of the year award went to the BMW 3-Series. The Hero XPulse bagged the IMOTY award. The entire awards proceedings from the Jury round till the awards night was done with transparency with the help of the official auditing partner Grant Thornton India for ICOTY & IMOTY. JK tyre also has to be credited for supporting the ICOTY & IMOTY awards ever since its inception way back in 2005.
ICOTY Winner
This year’s contenders for ICOTY was packed with many manufactures putting their best foot forward and sending their products to be evaluated for the top awards. The field included Honda Civic, Hyundai Grand i10 NIOS, Tata Harrier, MG Hector, Nissan Kicks, Kia Seltos, Maruti Suzuki S-Presso, Renault Triber and the Maruti Suzuki WagonR. The Hyundai Venue took the crown by beating out the KIA Seltos in the points table with the Venue scoring 111 points as compared to the Venue’s 102 points.
IMOTY Winner
On the Motorcycle side the finalists for the IMOTY award were Benelli Imperiale 400, Hero Xtreme 200S, Honda CB300R, Jawa Forty-Two, KTM 125 Duke, Suzuki Gixxer SF 250 and the Yamaha MT-15.Out of this lot the Hero XPulse stood out in the eyes of the jury members and scored 74 points and edged out the CB300R that scored 73 points making this the closest ever points difference in the history of the IMOTY.
Finally the Premium Car of the Year title that is reserved for cars priced above 40-lakh the BMW 3-Series beat out it older and bigger sibling the BMW X5 with the 3-series scoring 105 points and the X5 getting 102 points coming in third was the Audi A6 with 67 points.
It has been a tough year for the whole automotive industry but it has been good to end it on a high note with the entire IMOTY & ICOTY jury coming together to decide the winners at a jury event that was held at the Buddh International Circuit (BIC) in Greater Noida. The BIC venue for this jury round was selected as it provided a safe and controlled environment where the esteemed jury members could put all the cars and bikes through their paces and evaluate them.
For the 2020 ICOTY awards the jury was made up of 16-members that included our EVO India Editor-Chief Sirish Chandran , Yogendra Pratap Singh (Chairman - ICOTY) & Rahul Ghosh (Auto Today), Dhruv Behl & Ishan Raghava (AutoX), Aspi Bhathena & Sarmad Kadiri (CAR India), Aniruddha Rangnekar (EVO India), Pablo Chaterji & Kartik Ware (Motoring World), Bertrand D'Souza & Rohit Paradkar (Overdrive), Muralidhar Swaminathan (The Hindu Business Line), Vikrant Singh (CarWale), Kushan Mitra (The Pioneer) and Girish Karkera (GQ India).
Coming to the IMOTY jury that consisted of 12 members Rahul Ghosh & Dipayan Dutta (Auto Today), Jared Solomon & Arup Das (autoX), Aspi Bhathena & Sarmad Kadiri (BIKE India), Sirish Chandran (Fast Bikes India), Pablo Chaterji & Kartik Ware (Motoring World), Abhay Verma & Rohit Paradkar (Overdrive) and Vikrant Singh (BikeWale).
All the cars and bike contenders for the ICOTY & IMOTY were judged by the esteemed jury member mentioned above on parameters like fuel efficiency, styling, comfort, safety, performance, practicality, technical innovation, build quality, value-for-money and suitability for Indian driving/riding conditions. All of these parameters were looked upon with a fine eye as the jury has cumulatively experience of more than 300 years plus of evaluating automobiles of all shapes and sizes. We can say a fair analysis has taken place for the ICOTY & IMOTY awards.
