VW Polo is the 2010 Car of the Year

[See the latest iMOTOR magazine here]

The crème de la crème of Europe’s motoring journalists have just announced that the 2010 Car of the Year is the new VW Polo. The VW supermini just edged out the Toyota iQ and new Vauxhall Astra in a pretty closely fought battle to be crowned number one for the coming year.

The Polo. Really?

But while we’re on-board with the fact that the new Polo is the most refined supermini money can buy, it’s hardly exciting. We’d have gone with the iQ instead. Granted it’s not quite as innovative as Toyota would have you believe, but we love how different it looks, how cleverly it’s packaged and how awesome its turning circle is. We reckon the Yeti beats the bloated Astra too.

Second is the new first

But whatever the result, we reckon that second place in the CotY judging is where the cool cars come anyway – the iQ shares the runner up spot with the waft-tastic Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow (1966), the quirky Fiat X1/9 (1974) and even the mighty Merc SL (1990).

Here are this year’s results in full:

VW Polo: 2010 Car of the Year points: 347
Toyota iQ: 2010 Car of the Year points: 337
Vauxhall Astra: 2010 Car of the Year points: 221
Skoda Yeti: 2010 Car of the Year points: 158
Mercedes E Class: 2010 Car of the Year points: 155
Peugeot 3008: 2010 Car of the Year points: 144
Citroen C3 Picasso: 2010 Car of the Year points: 113