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Honda has won two categories and an excellence award in Fairfax’s inaugural
Drive Car of the Year awards.
The Honda Accord Euro won the Best Medium Car category, beating the
Jetta, Camry and Liberty, while the Honda Odyssey won the Best People Mover category, beating the Grand Carnival, Tarago and Territory. The Civic won
an Award for Excellence – Interior Design.
The Drive Car of the Year team was impressed with the Euro’s quality,
equipment and value for money.
“The Japanese mid-sizer is three years old and still going strong. Gives BMW
3-series and Audi A4 a run for their money, let alone similarly priced rivals.”
“The Honda ticked all the right boxes across our five criteria... the
drivetrain was the pick of the bunch with one judge saying the five speed was
almost “intuitive”, adjusting to your driving behaviour even when in full
automatic mode.”
“The judges felt the Euro was ‘sharp’ in the quality, equipment and value
stakes.”
The Honda Euro retails from $33,990, and features a 140kW, 2.4-litre engine
with a choice of 6-speed manual or 5-speed automatic transmission.
The Drive Car of the Year team also praised the Honda Odyssey for “its
quality interior and clever packaging, especially the low floor and
easily-folding seats, not to mention the functional yet futuristic-looking dash
that also delivers on storage cubby holes.”
“It also offers genuine value in a stylish body that sits lower to the ground
for a lower centre of gravity, which brings impressive stability and a viceless,
yet competent, driving experience.”
“Moving larger families can be a challenge at the best of times, but Honda’s
keenly-priced Odyssey does it better than the rest”.
The Honda Odyssey retails from $39,290 with a 118kW, 2.4-litre engine, a
5-speed automatic transmission and seats seven people.
The Civic won the Award for Excellence – Interior Design, thanks to
“an interior that looks many thousands of dollars classier than it costs”.
The judging team said “Clever material use gels succinctly with a functional
yet finely crafted layout to realise one of the nicest places to spend a drive -
even at twice the $23,000 entry fee.”
For more information about the Drive Car of the Year awards, visit www.drive.com.au. To find out more about
Honda’s model lineup, visit www.honda.com.au.
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