At an event held on Thursday, 19 January 2017, in the Vodadome at VodaWorld, Midrand, Cars.co.za hosted the second edition of the annual Consumer Awards, which was powered by Wesbank. The awards are aimed at recognising the best consumer cars for the different categories, as well as the overall brand in South Africa.
Undoubtedly the biggest winner of the evening was Suzuki South Africa, having bagged the Brand of the Year award, along with Budget Car and Compact Family Car of the year. There’s no doubting Suzuki’s reach over the past two years, having placed a lot of faith in a mini-relaunch of sorts in South Africa while offering great value for money to the consumer for their cars. The full list of winners can be viewed below.
Side note: While John Vlismas was entertaining as the host of the awards, he was at one point upstaged by a cat that wandered into the venue, taking it’s time to walk across the entire base of the stage, providing the funniest moment of the evening. One can’t help how this would have gone down in other countries outside of South Africa, with no one bothered to shoo, hasten or drag the cat from the venue, instead enjoying the moment for what it was.
The Judging Process
Having established itself as one of the most prestigious, credible and influential awards programme in the South African motor industry, the judging process is a good reflection of the underlying drive to excellence and fairness across all categories. The judging process was backed by WesBank, which included a total of 13 judges (both experts and guests), the Owner Satisfaction Survey (in association with Lightstone Consumer) on Cars.co.za, which had a 50% weighting towards the final result. The Brand of the Year Award, however, was based entirely on the survey data, voted, thusly, by the consumers of South Africa.
The Winners
Beverley Dickson