This is SA's 2016 Car of the Year

Ekurhuleni - South Africa's 2016 Wesbank SAGMJ Car of the Year is the Volvo XC90.

The winner was announced at gala banquet held at Emperor's Palace in Kempton Park on Tuesday night and in a departure from the norm, the organisers also announced runners up, with the Ford Fusion taking second place and the Mazda2 third.

This is the second time Volvo has taken the prize in the competition’s 31-year history (the S40 won in 2005) and the large SUV's win echoes this publication's sentiments as we also named it our best car of 2015 . The XC90 has also won various national awards, namely Scottish SUV of the Year, North American Truck of the Year and Icelandic Car of the Year.

How SA Car of the Year is decided

The XC90 range sells for between R820 200 and R1 025 000 in South Africa, powered by a range of 2-litre turbo-charged petrol and diesel engines offering between 140kW and 300kW (the latter in the case of the T8 hybrid).

The XC90 impressed with its elegant interior and wide array of available features, including an advanced pedestrian and cyclist detection system.

NEW SCORING SYSTEM

This year's Coty contest saw some changes to the judging process, with a new electronic scoring system featuring categories.

Judging took place in early February when the 26-member jury, consisting of motoring journalists selected by members of the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists (SAGMJ), spent two days thoroughly evaluating the 12 finalists.

While the vehicle evaluation procedure, which included some extreme dynamic tests at the Gerotek facility, remained largely as before, the new scoring system focused on categories, rather than giving each individual car an overall score as had been the case in recent years.

The categories were: interior design & practicality, exterior aesthetics, safety & technology, performance, handling & dynamics, efficiency, value for money and overall excellence.

The competition organisers also applied a weighting to these categories, to favour the more sensible factors such as value.