Kushan Mitra

WHEELS HOT

Kushan Mitra Auto & tech expert

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The Hyundai i20 won Indian Car Of The Year 2021 while the Indian Motorcycle Of The Year was awarded to the Royal Enfield Meteor

INDIA’Smost India’s most prestigious four-wheeler award, the Indian Car Of The Year (ICOTY) 2021 was won by the thirdgeneration Hyundai i20.

The jury members — including this columnist led by the chairman, Yogendra Pratap, editor, Auto Today –— comprised many of India’s leading automotive writers and road-test evaluators and India’s leading automotive publications including Auto Today, AutoX, Car Magazine, Evo Magazine, Motoring, Overdrive and The Hindu Business Line. Also, there were a few independent judges all of whom have extensive experience in reviewing and evaluating cars. The jury members for ICOTY included Yogendra Pratap and Rahul Ghosh from Auto Today; Dhruv Behl and Ishan Raghava from Auto X; Sirish Chandran and Anirudhha Rangekar from Evo; Pablo Chaterji and Kartik Ware from Motoring; Bertrand D’Souza and Bob Rupani from Overdrive and Murali Swaminadhan from The Hindu Business Line; Kranti Sambhav from Times Drive; Girish Karkera from Times Auto; Vikrant Singh from Carwale and yours truly from The Pioneer.

Yogendra Pratap explains the rationale behind the award, “The reason the ICOTY is India’s leading automotive award is not just the name, but also the fact that every one of our jurors brings in their different ways of looking at cars. Some may have a more enthusiastic bent of mind and others review it in a more practical and family-focussed way. All other awards are by individual publications where these biases show but at the ICOTY our large and diverse jury and the fact that the points system has been designed properly as well as our jury votes being validated by Grant and Thornton Bharat ensure that the process is fair.”

Aspi Bhatena — a member of the ICOTY jury since its inception 16 years ago and also the Chairman of the IMOTY awards, which is in its 14th edition — explained that the IMOTY awards have grown with the Indian two-wheeler industry,

which is the world’s largest. “Take our winner from 2019, the Royal Enfield V-Twin Interceptor, which today is winning awards across the world and has helped Royal Enfield establish itself in several new markets. That is also the case with ICOTY. None of our winners have been lemons. They have all been sales successes.”

To be fair, the ICOTY and IMOTY do not get awarded to the ‘Best’ car that one has driven in the past year. Jury members have to keep several things in mind including the relevance of the vehicle to the Indian market, which segment it operates in, pricing, the features it offers and other aspects like performance and handling.

The same applies to the IMOTY awards. As any of you, who have read my reviews, know that I have also evolved as a reviewer as new and different aspects of cars come into play, particularly safety which is going to play an ever-increasing role in the way we evaluate cars. With the coming of the Bharat New Car Assessment Programme (Bharat-NCAP), for the coming year, all cars will be assessed for crash safety and occupant protection. The ICOTY has been supported from the very first day by India’s largest tyre manufacturer JK Tyre and speaking at the awards, Dr Raghupati Singhania stated that it was heartening to see the growth of the Indian automotive industry after suffering from one of the worst years in history and how the automotive industry was one of the main drivers of the economic recovery of the country. Despite the pandemic, the turnout of the senior management of several companies was very high.

The Hyundai i20 became the second vehicle from the Korean manufacturer to win the ICOTY award in the past two years and S.S Kim, chairman and managing director, Hyundai India was pleased as punch to win the award stating that the new i20 is already establishing new benchmarks for premium hatchbacks. The i20 beat out the Kia Sonet and the Mahindra Thar to the top prize.