Ford Fiesta wins What Car? Car of the Year

The all-new Ford Fiesta took top honours at the 32nd annual motoring ‘Oscars’, the What Car? Car of the Year Awards 2009.

Ford scooped four awards during the glittering ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane.

What Car? editor Steve Fowler said: ‘The Fiesta is the right car at the right time – small in size, but big on ability. We love the way it looks and the way it drives, but it also stacks up as a shrewd buy, offering space and quality, while being affordable to buy and run”.

The Fiesta was also named best supermini, while Ford’s Mondeo won two awards, for best family car and best estate car.

John Fleming, chairman and CEO, Ford of Europe, said: "This is tremendous news for the whole Ford team – the great British public has already made new Fiesta the UK's best-selling car in the closing months of last year, and this ultimate endorsement by What Car? will drive the new Fiesta to even greater success this year."

Jaguar’s XF, last year’s What Car? Car of the Year, retained its title of best executive car, while the British-built Mini Cooper S won the best hot hatch Award for the third year running.

Volkswagen came away with three Awards including the Readers’ Award for the Golf GTi, voted most exciting new car to go on sale in 2009 by users of whatcar.com and evecars.com. The new VW Golf was also named best small family car, while the VW Eos won the best open-top car Award.

Euro NCAP, the European New Car Assessment Programme, picked up the prestigious What Car? safety accolade for its work in testing and rating the safety of all new cars over the last 10 years and influencing the design of the cars we drive today.

Other winners included the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso – a three-time winner in the MPV category – Nissan’s new GT-R in the performance car category, Volvo’s XC60 in the SUV category and the Audi TT in the coupé category.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative party leader David Cameron, and Nick Clegg from the Liberal Democrats recorded messages of support for those who work in the industry in the UK, which were played at the awards.