Volkswagen's Polo subcompact won the award as Europe's Car of the Year for 2010, beating out a field of over 30 rivals and bringing the trophy to Wolfsburg for the first time in 18 years.
All 59 jury members, all motoring journalists, from 23 European countries gave points to the winner, and 25 of them chose it as their favorite. This gave it a grand total of 347 points, 10 more than its closest competitor.
"The Polo convinced most of all thanks to its complete safety package and its range of modern engines," jury president Hakan Matson was quoted as saying in a VW statement.
Global orders for the new Volkswagen Polo have exceeded 130,000 since its May launch, the company said, adding however that not all bodystyles have been rolled out and the next-generation subcompact has yet to be sold in certain countries such as China.
A spokesman for VW said combined global sales of both the old Polo and the new one, which has only recently launched the three-door version in Europe, were higher in the 11 months through November than those of the old version last year.
By comparison, Volkswagen built 409,000 Polos last year, accounting for about 11 percent of the VW brand's overall production volume.
The Polo beat out Toyota's iQ minicar, which will be sold in the United States under the Scion badge.
Third place went to the Astra compact, as GM's Opel missed out on a repeat following the win last year for its Insignia flagship.
The other four finalists from an original field of 33 models this year included PSA's Citroen C3 Picasso, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the Peugeot 3008 and the Skoda Yeti.
