Categories
Honda News

Honda Accord Euro wins Wheels COTY

Honda Accord Euro - Wheels COTY 2009

I know the Aussie car mags cop a lot of flak out there in readerland, but for mine, they do a better than half reasonable job of catering to what may be considered our narrow local market, while still giving good coverage of activities beyond our shores.

To that end the Wheels Magazine Car of the Year award lays claim to being the world’s longest continuously running COTY award. That’s pretty cool I reckon, and also says a fair bit about the longevity and relevance of motoring journalism in our country.

Okay, enough pontificating, and onto the news that the second gen Honda Accord Euro has been named this year’s Wheels COTY winner. The mag, perhaps not doing anything to placate their critics, announces the award on Channel 9’s A Current Affair these days. Sure, that gets them a great TV audience, but, to me, does little to enhance their reputation as the country’s leading car mag. ACA is mostly a disgrace that does little more than whip its audience into a lather about the latest terrorist “threat” and the current must do diet craze.

Wheels, you owe yourself a greater show of self-respect than your affiliation with ACA offers.

So, about that pontificating. Yes, erm, anyway, back to the car gong, Honda Australia, obviously, was chuffed to claim the award and Mr Yasuhide Mizuno, Managing Director and CEO said, “This is fantastic result for a fantastic car that epitomises every element of Honda’s DNA. It’s fun to drive nature combined with quality, safety, value and sporty styling is what the second-generation Accord Euro is about.”

Good for Honda. For more on the Wheels COTY check out their website.

Categories
Fifth Gear

Fifth Gear – Series 14, Episode 3

Fifth Gear - Series 14, Episode 3

A much better showing from the lads at Fifth Gear this week. The shootout saw Jason Plato pit der neue Passat R36 Estate against der neue Audi A4 3.0TDI Estate. TheR36 is Volkswagen’s most powerful and quickest production car to date, but it didn’t have it all its own way against the A4 oil burner. More VAG content when VBH compared a Golf GT TDI against a Kia PRO-cee’d diesel. She reckons the Kia is getting better. While I hate to admit it doesn’t actually look too bad, I’ll take her word for it otherwise. Jonny went to the Ultimate Street Car show, or Summer Nats for chavs. He claimed there was some art and talent there, and to be fair, he’s probably right. But there’s also a crap load of wasted money, including a Civic Type R that has had £90K (AU$193K) thrown at it. Tiff drove around with Jarno Trulli in a Prius. It’s okay, they fell asleep too. Tim Shaw simply has to lose the stupid jumpers and poxy jeans, although, that would leave him with precisely no personality. A point he proved again while trying to match manufacturer’s performance claims in a MINI Cooper S, Mazda MX-5 and an Ariel Atom. Tom drove around in a new Honda Accord Jap, oops, I mean Euro. Tiff closed out the show being a prat against Australia’s own Jason Crump on a speedway track. Predictable results and a whining Tiff followed. Passable.