Ford of Europe is voted Car Company of the Year

Ford of Europe has won Autocar magazine’s annual Car Company of the Year Award for 2007.

The honour was announced by Chas Hallett, Autocar’s editor, at a ceremony in Westminster attended by more than 400 motor industry leaders and celebrities from Europe, the US and Asia.

Ford of Europe president and CEO John Fleming accepted the award, which recognised its development of outstanding cars and its consistent profitability. In 2007, the Ford S-MAX was voted Car of the Year and the Ford Transit was voted International Van of the Year.

At the same event, Ford’s retiring chief technical officer, Richard Parry-Jones, was honoured with a special Editor’s Award for Excellence for inspiring Ford’s development of industry-leading driving dynamics, which has inspired literally thousands of engineers, and stimulated improvements in rival products as well as Ford’s own model range.

There was further Ford link with Autocar's poignant award for Idea of the Year, which went to the McRae Enduro, a “supercar for the desert” to which the McRae family of rally champions – including 1995 WRC title winner Colin, recently tragically killed in a helicopter accident – have lent their name. This super-tough racer is powered by a Ford Dagenham-built diesel engine and it aims to cater for teams entering extreme events like the Dakar Rally.

Summing up the awards, Autocar editor Chas Hallett praised the motor industry’s never-ending quest for excellence. “The car business is often an easy target and gets unjustly blamed for many things, but it inspires and pioneers new technology, employs more than 800,000 people in the UK and generates £47 billion a year, nearly half from exports. It is – and will always be – one of the UK’s most vital industrial assets. We damage it at our peril.”