Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Sweep the Board Worldwide in 2011 Awards

43 first prizes from prestigious specialist journals for Amarok, T5, Caddy and Crafter.

The Amarok made sixteen appearances on the top step of the winners’ podium, the T5 thirteen, the Caddy ten and the Crafter appeared four times: altogether, models from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles were awarded a total of 43 first prizes by international specialist journals in 2011.

The decisions are made by three categories of juries: the journalists on specialist magazines, the magazines’ readers, and the users themselves, who know exactly what is important because as craftsmen or couriers they are on the road in these vehicles day in, day out.

“These awards, both by journalists and by experts, mean a great deal to us”, stresses Harald Schomburg, Member of the Board of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles for Sales and Marketing. “They show us the unvarnished truth, because our vehicles are subjected to the sophisticated judgment of an expert jury, in direct comparison with their competitors.”

The criteria on which judgments are based are as diverse as the awards and the juries themselves:

In Australia, for instance, the Amarok was honored recently with the “4x4 UTE of the Year Award”. UTE is a term used by Australians to refer to a particular type of pickup. Just as individual were the criteria used by the Australian jury to select the winner: as well as ”Value”, “Doing the job” and “Built tough”, another feature decisive for the jury’s verdict was “Bush ability” – in Australia, a pickup has to be able cope not only with off-road conditions, but especially with driving in the outback.

In Germany the Amarok received the most sought-after of all trophies in the hunting sector, the „Goldener Keiler“ (the „Golden Boar“) for the first time. The magazine “Jäger” awards this hunting ‘Oscar’ based on the votes of around 6,000 readers who, as professional hunters and members of regional hunting associations, know exactly what a pickup has to be capable of in woodland terrain.

As a newcomer to the pickups in 2011, the Amarok won a total of 16 international first prizes. The list ranges from „Best Buy“, from Brazilian magazine „Quatro Rodas“, through „Allrad-Auto des Jahres“ (“Four-Wheel Drive Automobile of the Year”) awarded by Germany’s magazine “Auto Bild Allrad”, to the “Golden Horn” award of the Russian magazine “Klakson”.

Whether selected as “KEP-Transporter des Jahres” (“Courier Transporter of the Year”) in Germany, as “Best Light Commercial Vehicle” by the wellknown magazine “Otohaber” in Turkey, as “Bestes Familienauto” (“Best Family Car”) by the German publication “AutoStraßenverkehr”, or in Russia as “Best Van”: the T5 Series with its variants Transporter, Caravelle and Multivan stole the show a total of 13 times in 2011. Here, too, the experts’ verdict was frequently significant. When selecting the Volkswagen Caravelle as “Taxi of the Year 2011”, the expert jury of experienced taxi-drivers evaluated 23 vehicles from different manufacturers in great detail in the city of Fulda, Hesse. Their final score was based not only on the driving impressions from the road test and the assessment of functionality, but also included image considerations and an evaluation of economic efficiency.

The Caddy, too, collected ten first places and was successful in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Germany. Its popularity with Germany’s commercial vehicle professionals is unbroken – in 2011 it was voted best commercial vehicle for the eighth time in succession. With 64.9 percent of voters behind it, the Caddy had more votes than any other vehicle in the readers’ ballot of the specialist magazines “lastauto omnibus”, “trans aktuell” and “Fernfahrer”, carried out every year with the backing of DEKRA, one of the world’s leading technical expert organizations.

Last, but not least: the Crafter. Following the fundamental redesign of the series in 2011, it has already managed to secure four victories, including most recently the much-coveted “Utilitaire de l’annee 2012” awarded by the prestigious French motor magazine „L’Argus“.

And in Great Britain, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles was the only manufacturer to succeed in gaining 2012 awards from the British magazine “What Van?” in three different categories. The Amarok was voted “Pick-up of the Year”, the Caddy 4Motion now has the proud title “4x4 Van of the Year” and the Transporter Sportline won the “Editors’ Choice” award, becoming the declared favorite of “What Van?” magazine’s editorial team.

“The wide range of evaluations and criteria in which our models come out on top demonstrates that our offer includes the right model for every customer. We are proud of this diversity, and we make use of it through our worldwide organization to acquire impressive shares of the market “, Schomburg emphasizes.