The awards are not chosen by so-called experts, by small panels of professional car writers or technical boffins; but by people who experience the ‘real world’ of living with their car day to day, with the results drawn from the experience and views of a vast army of actual owners of the cars reviewed. And Subaru owners praised their cars on an extremely high consistent basis, praising the cars from Subaru for the ride quality, fine handling, high level of driving confidence, stability provided by the All-Wheel Drive, reliability and durability.
All-in-all it was the Japanese AWD brand that scored the highest average score for owner satisfaction.
Other Manufacturer Award winners were Skoda (for Best Overall Manufacturer and Best Diesel), Maserati (‘Great to Drive’ Award), Abarth (Most Exciting To Drive and Rising Star Award 2014), Smart (Most Economical), Lexus (Most Comfortable and Best Petrol Car Manufacturer), and Honda (Most Reliable and Best Hybrid – for the Honda Insight).
And when it came to individual models, awards were picked up by the Toyota IQ (Best City Car), Mazda MX-5 (Best Convertible), VW Tiguan (Best 4x4), Volkswagen EOS (Best Cabriolet Hard Top), Jaguar XJ (Best Executive Car), Skoda Yeti (Best Medium Car), Ford S-Max (Best MPV), BMW 3-Series (Best Small Executive Car), VW Scirocco (Best Sports Car), Citroen DS3 (Best Supermini), and Skoda Superb (Best Large Car).