Shereen Shabnam
Being an automotive Jury the last few years for global motoring awards has been a key highlight of my life. This year, car enthusiasts around the world eagerly awaited the announcement of the 2023 World Car of the Year awards winners, held at the New York Motor Show.
A jury of 100 distinguished international automotive journalists from 32 countries selected the winners by secret ballot based on their evaluation of each eligible vehicle as part of their on-going professional work. The vote results were tabulated by KPMG.
The award recognizes the best cars released in the past year, based on a number of factors including design, performance, safety, and innovation. As Jury, we drove numerous cars throughout the year and a large number of nominated cars in Los Angeles last year, the competition was fierce, with a number of impressive new cars from new and established automakers.
The World Car of the Year 2023 ceremony, powered by Brembo, was held in New York City with a crowd of journalists, car industry experts, and enthusiasts gathered witnessing the announcement of the winner.
The awards concluded with a triple win for the Hyundai Motor Company as the Hyundai Ioniq 6 won the overall 2023 World Car of the Year title, the 2023 World Electric Vehicle as well as the 2023 World Car Design of the Year awards. This is the second consecutive triple win for the Hyundai Motor Group.
Highlight for our team was having SangYup Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Hyundai and Genesis Global Design Center, Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) on hand at the awards ceremony to participate in a Q&A with media and receive his 2023 World Car Person of the Year trophy. The short list of finalists for the 2023 Top Three in the World were the Hyundai Ioniq 6, the Range Rover and the Lucid Air. The 2023 World Luxury Car is the LUCID AIR. The LUCID AIR was chosen from an initial entry list of sixteen (16) vehicles from all over the world then a short list of three finalists.
In the 2023 World Performance Car category, KIA EV6 GT emerged as the winner while the CITROEN C3 is the 2023 World Urban Car. The Citroen PSA Group has won three World Car Awards to date.
All vehicles eligible for other World Car award categories are automatically eligible for World Car Design of the Year award. This year there were seventy-eight (78) eligible vehicles in total.
A panel consisting of six highly respected world design experts was asked to first review each of the 78 candidates, and then establish a short-list of recommendations for the jurors’ final vote.
The design experts are in alphabetical order: Ian Callum (United Kingdom – Director of Design, CALLUM), Gert Hildebrand (Germany – Owner Hildebrand-Design), Patrick le Quément (France – Designer and President of the Strategy Committee – The Sustainable Design School), Tom Matano (USA – Academy of Art University, Former Head of Design – Mazda), Victor Nacif (USA – Chief Creative Officer, Brojure.com and Design instructor, NewSchool of Architecture and Design) and Shiro Nakamura (Japan – CEO, Shiro Nakamura Design Associates Inc.).
All of the World Car Award trophies were created this year by legendary automotive designer, Ian Callum’s design and engineering consultancy CALLUM. All seven of the new CALLUM designed trophies were produced by REPLIQUE using the first fully encrypted 3D printing platform that offers OEMs a secure and sustainable means of providing parts on demand, anytime, anywhere.
The Road to the World Car Awards is an annual journey that follows 100 international jurors as they test-drive, and vote on, the eligible vehicles for the 2023 awards. The jurors’ road-test journey is captured virtually on World Car TV as the jurors provide viewers with reviews and commentary on the awards’ eligible vehicles in six categories.
