In what turned out to be a close battle for the Japanese Car of the Year award, the new Mazda MX-5 held on to win, with the Honda S660 and BMW 2-Series Gran Tourer coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
The MX-5’s chief engineer Nobuhiro Yamamoto was on deck to celebrate the roadster’s victory at an award ceremony in Tokyo, as were his designers, engineers and media team. The MX-5 came away with 442 votes, while the Honda S660 fell short by 41 votes.
The BMW 2-Series Gran Tourer tallied 177 votes, good for third-place honors as well as the Import Car of the Year award.
This is Mazda’s second consecutive COTY win in Japan, as the Mazda2 went on to win it in 2014. Accepting the award was the Hiroshima-based manufacturer’s product planning VP Kiyoshi Fujiwara, who reminded the press that “We went through some tough times during the financial crisis and 2011 earthquake, but we stuck to our founding principles and created a winning formula. We think the jurors’ response to our MX-5 shows that sports cars are making a strong comeback in Japan. This award means a lot to our development team.”
The Suzuki Alto also stood out by picking up the Small Mobility award, while the Tesla Model S predictably won the Innovation award.
Unfortunately, the ‘Emotional’ award wasn’t given to anybody this year because there was a split in voting between several sporty models (including the MX-5, S660, Model S), so nobody gained the necessary 200 votes in order to claim it.
Due to its technological achievements, specifically advancing the spread of hydrogen powered fuel-cell vehicles, the Toyota Mirai was also presented with a ‘Special Award’ – which is appropriate considering the plans Toyota have with this car on a global scale.
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