The 2016 iteration of the prestigious World Car Awards (WCA) kicked off this week with the announcement of the new jury panel. For the first time ever, Cars.co.za will have a representative on the panel in Consumer Experience Manager, Hannes Oosthuizen. Hannes is one of only two South Africans on the panel (along with Mike Fourie of CAR magazine) and also previously served on the jury panel prior to leaving the media industry in 2013.

World Car Awards Revs Up

The 2016 awards marks the 12th running of the WCA program, which is now regarded as the world’s number one awards program, according to Prime Research in an annual media report prepared for the global automotive industry.

The World Car Awards panel consists of 71 jurors representing 23 countries. The candidates in each of the five award categories (World Car of the Year, World Luxury Car, World Green Car, World Performance Car and World Car Design of the Year) will be officially declared at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show, which will be attended for Cars.co.za by editor David Taylor.

The current WCA trophy holders are; Mercedes-Benz C-Class (World Car of the Year), Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe (World Luxury Car), BMW i8 (World Green Car), Citroen C4 Cactus (World Car Design of the Year) andMercedes-AMG GT (World Performance Car).

Both the C-Class and S-Class Coupe are also semi-finalists in Cars.co.za’s own new Consumer Awards programme, which was launched recently. To follow the progress of our own Awards programme, visit www.carsawards.co.za and keep an eye on #carsawards on Twitter.