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John Mahoney13 Apr 2017
NEWS

Jaguar F-PACE is 2017 World Car of the Year

SUV also voted most beautiful in prestigious awards

Jaguar’s F-PACE has been named the best and most beautiful car in the 2017 World Car Awards.

The 13th annual WCOTY awards, which are voted on by 74 jurors from 24 countries, reflected sales trends that continue to see traditional sedans, wagons and hatches give way to the SUV surge.

Despite more than 100 new cars being launched in 2017, the three finalists for the WCOTY in 2017 were all SUVs, with the F-PACE beating out the Volkswagen Tiguan and the Audi Q5.

It's the first time the British car-maker has won the World Car of the Year accolade in the 13-year history of the awards.

The Jag SUV has already contributed to record sales growth for the British car-maker by becoming the fastest-selling model in Jaguar's history.

A shocked JLR boss Ralph Speth accepted both the overall award and the World Car Design award for Jaguar’s first ever SUV in a breakfast to open the New York International Auto Show.

“I am overwhelmed. JLR is just a small company. A family. We just want to do something special to delight our customers and this proves we are on the right track,” he said.

“Thank you very much for the engineers for delivering this combination of art, design, engineering integrity and innovation to provide our customers with something special.

"The F-PACE was designed and engineered as a performance SUV with exceptional dynamics, everyday usability and bold design," he said.

"Winning this award endorses the talent and great work of our teams that have delivered the world’s most practical sports car and Jaguar's fastest-selling vehicle."

Celebrating the award for the most beautiful car of 2017 its designer, Ian Callum, attributed the F-PACE's success to the fact that, despite being an SUV, it was "clearly recognisable as a Jaguar".

BMW’s i3 took out the inaugural World Urban Car of the Year ahead of the Suzuki Ignis and the Citroen C3. The F-PACE collected its World Car Design trophy ahead of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Cabriolet and the Toyota C-HR.

Toyota surprised Tesla by toppling the cult electric-car favourite to win the World Green Car trophy, beasting out the heavily hyped Model X with the Prius Prime, and also Chevrolet’s Bolt.

Porsche’s venture into turbocharged four-cylinder boxer-engine power for the Cayman/Boxster twins paid off, with the mid-engined German favourite beating home the Audi’s R8 Spyder and the McLaren 570S to win the World Performance Car of the Year category

Mercedes-Benz’s deeply engineered E-Class beat the BMW 5 Series and Volvo S90/V90 to win the World Luxury Car trophy.

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