{"id":92051,"date":"2015-04-02T10:56:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T14:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=92051"},"modified":"2015-04-02T10:56:55","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T14:56:55","slug":"mercedes-benz-pulls-hat-trick-at-world-car-of-the-year-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2015\/04\/mercedes-benz-pulls-hat-trick-at-world-car-of-the-year-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes-Benz Pulls Hat Trick at World Car of the Year Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mercedes' PR Chief Christoph Horn, center, accepts the World Car of the Year award for the Mercedes C-Class.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mercedes-Benz dominated the competition during the World Car of the Year ceremonies at the New York International Auto Show.<\/p>\n

\u201cMercedes pulled off a hat trick,\u201d said Peter Lyons, co-chairman of the global awards program, after he handed out the last of five trophies during ceremonies at New York\u2019s Jacob Javits convention center. That included the coveted honor of being named World Car of the Year for the 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class.<\/p>\n

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Automotive Insight!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI am speechless,\u201d said the German maker\u2019s global PR chief Christoph Horn, as he stared out at a large audience of journalists and executives from competing manufacturers. \u201cOne doesn\u2019t think it could get better\u201d than taking one, then a second trophy, \u201cbut it did,\u201d said Horn as he took the biggest of the awards.<\/p>\n

The World Car program is designed to recognize vehicles that are sold in at least two global markets \u2013 something that has become increasingly common these days. In fact, one of the three finalists for the World Car of the Year category, the 2015 Ford Mustang, just became eligible for the award, the Detroit maker taking the recently redesigned pony car global for the first time in its 50-year history.<\/p>\n

The 75 journalists who make up the World Car jury represent traditional and new media outlets on every continent but Antarctica. They had to wade through hundreds of cars for the five different categories, eventually whittling them down to three finalists for each.<\/p>\n

The World Green Car award was narrowed down to the Golf GTE battery-electric vehicle, the Mercedes-Benz S500e and the winner, the BMW i8.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a recognition of a brilliant car,\u201d proclaimed BMW Board Member Ian Robertson, as he accepted the award, \u201ca sports car for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Daimler extends Dieter Zetsche’s contract three years to 2019. For more, <\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The World Car Design of the Year was narrowed down to the Mercedes C-Class, Volvo XC90 and Citroen C4 Cactus. The French design, which maintains that country\u2019s tradition of unusual, often downright quirky, styling, took honors. One of the more novel features of the Cactus is its soft side panels designed to help absorb parking lot blows without leaving dings and dents<\/p>\n

While Mercedes placed a finalist in all three categories, it didn\u2019t get to make a podium dash until it was time to accept the trophy for World Performance Car. The new M4 and M3 siblings, as well as the Jaguar F-Type R Coupe, had to move aside for the new Mercedes AMG GT sports car.<\/p>\n

(<\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for details Mercedes plans to use Internet to drive sales.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cParents are always proud when their kids do well,\u201d boasted Rob Moran, head of the German maker\u2019s U.S. PR operations \u2013 and a member of the planning team when the GT was originally conceived.<\/p>\n

Mercedes was back up on stage moments later when it took honors for World Luxury Car, its S Coupe topping both the BMW i8 and the Range Rover Autobiography Black LWB model.<\/p>\n

(To see more about Mercedes and its leap into the pickup truck market, <\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The German maker then closed things out by accepting the award for World Car. It was the strongest showing by a single manufacturer since the awards began, and continued a series of sweeps by European automakers in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mercedes-Benz dominated the World Car of the Year ceremonies at the New York International Auto Show. The maker’s C-Class captured the World Car of the Year title and it grabbed another. What one? Go to TheDetroitBureau.com to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92051"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=92051"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=92051"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=92051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}