Only Brand with Two Vehicles Among the 10 Selected
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Sept. 24, 2014 – The North American Car of the Year, one of the most prestigious automotive awards in the industry, named its short list and Hyundai Motor America was the only brand with two vehicles among the 10 selected – the all-new Hyundai Genesis and all-new Hyundai Sonata.
“In a world bursting with terrific new cars, it’s easy to become a little myopic, and lose sight of extraordinary achievement. Hyundai makes an excellent example,” said Tony Swan, North American Car of the Year juror. “In 2009, Hyundai challenged the luxury sedan establishment with its new Genesis, and collected the North American Car of the Year award. In 2011, the Hyundai Sonata was a finalist for the award. In 2012, the Hyundai Elantra took top honors again. And this year two Hyundais—Genesis and Sonata, both completely redesigned for 2015—are on the list of 10 North American Car of the Year semifinalists, selected from an original list of 29 cars. Not bad for a company that didn’t even exist until 1967.”
The short list will narrow down to three finalists later this year, with the winner of the 2015 Car of the Year being announced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
“This is a tremendous recognition of two great products and an outstanding team effort,” said Dave Zuchowski, president and CEO, Hyundai Motor America. “Our design group, assembly plant, service engineering and product planning teams all were critically responsible in developing and launching these vehicles, that we can now say are two of the best introduced this year. The competition is certainly tough, so we know we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Hyundai has excelled in this competition in recent years, winning Car of the Year in 2012 for Elantra and 2009 for Genesis, along with a second place finish for Sonata in 2011. This is the first time that two Hyundai vehicles have been included on the short list in the same year.
The complete short list in alphabetical order includes: