This year, most of the laurels in the form of the "Golden Steering Wheel" awards went to Volkswagen cars. The jury, approved by Auto Bild and Bild am Sonntag publications, consisting of 57 people (famous race car drivers, experts, journalists, designers, and just celebrities), determined the best of the best among 45 new models this year. In addition, readers of AutoBild magazine took part in choosing the "front-runners." They were tasked with determining the best convertible and compact van.
In the "Crossovers/Compact Vans" category, the victory was won by the Volkswagen Golf Sportsvan (see our test of the Sportsvan), among mid-size cars, preference was given to the Volkswagen Passat, and the "greenest" car was also recognized as the Golf, but with the GTE prefix.
Three more "Golden Steering Wheels" were received by cars of the Porsche brand, which, as is known, is part of the Volkswagen Group. Thus, the best crossover was chosen as the Porsche Macan (apparently, the failure of the moose test by the Swedes did not affect the judges' opinion), the first place among convertibles went to the Porsche 911 Targa 4S, and the best sports car of the outgoing year turned out to be the Porsche Cayman GTS.
It is noteworthy that the Mazda 2 made it into the list of "bombers," which looks quite lonely against the backdrop of the dominance of VW Group cars. Nevertheless, the Germans chose it as the best compact car. Among other things, the award went to the well-known Elon Musk from Tesla Motors. He was awarded the "Golden Steering Wheel" for his special contribution to the development of the automotive industry.
