Last October 19, a select group of local motoring journalists cast their votes for the Auto Focus Media\'s Choice Awards, the fourth-estate counterpart of the annual People\'s Choice Awards. We were made to pick our choices in the various car categories for four main awards: Best Design, Best Engine Performance, Best Safety Features and Best Value for Money.
We\'ll skip the results for the awards that basically require a voter to more or less have an intimate knowledge of the nominees. The award we want to discuss here is the one that extols exterior styling. For this citation, one doesn\'t really need to be technically familiar with a car; a 20-second gaze at a car photo should suffice. Which means anyone can participate in the debate, even without actually seeing the cars in the metal.
Note that the nominees are current models available in our market this year. Also, note that the media voters were not responsible for the categorization. We say this because there are some vehicles which we feel were assigned to the wrong categories (in terms of body size, mostly). The organizers were the ones who came up with the categories as well as arranged the nominees under them.
Here then are the Best Design winners in this year\'s Auto Focus Media\'s Choice Awards, as voted by several Top Gear Philippines staffers (editor-in-chief Vernon B. Sarne, associate editor Paulo Subido, and columnists Brian Afuang and Al Mendoza) and a few of our colleagues. See if you agree. Violent objections are welcome.
2013 AUTO FOCUS MEDIA\'S CHOICE FOR BEST DESIGN
Subcompact Car: Toyota Vios
Luxury Subcompact Car: Volvo V40
Compact Car: Ford Focus
Luxury Compact Car: Lexus IS350
Midsize Car: Mazda 6
Luxury Large Car: BMW 7-Series
Sports Car: Toyota 86
MPV: Kia Carens
Pickup: Ford Ranger
Van: Kia Carnival
Luxury Van: Toyota Alphard
Compact SUV: Kia Sportage
Midsize SUV: Hyundai Santa Fe
Luxury Midsize SUV: Volvo XC90
Large SUV: Ford Explorer
Open Category: Subaru XV
NOTE: We don\'t know why there are no winners (based on the list given to us) in the luxury midsize sedan, luxury sports car, luxury compact SUV, luxury large SUV and luxury open categories. We remember voting in these categories.
