Grand dinner marks climax of CIMB Autoworld Car Awards 2010
Half a year of hard work in putting together the CIMB Autoworld Car of the Year Awards 2010 came to a glorious climax on Wednesday as the winners were announced in a grand award and presentation dinner held at Holiday Inn Kuala Lumpur, Glenmarie. A total of 14 awards were up for grabs contested by 28 nominated cars that were on sale from November 2009 to October 2010.
Being the nation’s first ever car awards that is organized online, and also one that incorporates the views of the public via online voting, we saw it fit to mark the occasion with a bang. Turn out on the day was overwhelming, as our sponsors and business partners turned up in droves to attend the event. We were also pleased and humbled by a strong turn out of our friends from fellow motoring publications.
VIPs gracing the award included President of the Malaysia Automotive Association (MAA) Datuk Aishah Ahmad, En. Abdul Karim Md Lassim, Head of Auto Finance in the Retail Banking Division, CIMB Bank, and Datuk Ali bin Abdul Kadir, Chairman of Jobstreet Corporation Bhd, Autoworld’s parent company. Accompanying Datuk Ali were members of Jobstreet’s and Autoworld’s senior management. Other guests of honour included William Ng, Editor-in-Chief for SME Magazine and Mr Loh Kam Hian, Audit Partner of KPMG.
After a brief mingling and cocktail session, proceedings got underway with Datuk Ali Kadir being invited on stage to deliver a welcoming address. Datuk Ali got everyone in the hall laughing with humourous references and recollections of his days in rallying together with Editor and Chief Judge YS Khong or, according to Datuk Ali, better known as ‘King Khong’ in those days.
In his speech, Datuk Ali Kadir also reflected on the decision of Jobstreet to launch a takeover of Autoworld in 2008, saying that, “Today, we are proud to see Autoworld take another big step by being the first motoring website in Malaysia to host its very own car awards – the CIMB Autoworld Car of the Year Awards 2010.”
Datuk Ali kept his speech short and sweet, quickly making way for En. Abdul Karim of CIMB and Datuk Aishah of MAA to address the crowd. Also called on stage to deliver a few words were Chief Judge YS Khong, who explained to the audience the inner workings of the inaugural CIMB Autoworld Car of the Year Awards 2010.
Under his guidance, YS and the panel of 12 judges took the nominated cars in carefully planned convoys to locations such as Malacca, Penang, Cameron Highlands, Kuantan and Tanjung Tualang through a mixture of highway and back road driving to comprehensively review and evaluate each car’s performance and merits.
At each test drive session, each judge is given the opportunity to drive every car and award them with appropriate scores on various criteria such as performance, space, comfort, price, and value-for-money. The judges’ scores are eventually added up and averaged out, but they do not decide the winners outright.
In order to give its readers a say in the awards, a scoring mechanism was developed whereby 20% of the overall scoring awarded to the cars are based on online voting by Autoworld members through a specially developed microsite. A total of 80,000 votes were picked up over a one-month voting period in November, and some categories saw results actually being decided by online votes.
YS noted that the scoring mechanism used for the awards, which also applies appropriate weightages to different criteria in different categories, makes it impossible for any one person, even himself the Chief Judge, to have any influence over the final outcome of the award. With the scores of 12 judges and 80,000 votes to sift through, the final result can only be a consensus between judges and voters.
First winner of the night was the Perodua Myvi, an enduring favourite with Malaysian motorists. A beaming Perodua Managing Director Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh was there to collect the ‘Best Passenger Car: Super Compact‘ award from Jobstreet.com COO Mr Suresh Thiru. Following the Myvi were the Ford Fiesta (Best Passenger Car: Sub-Compact) and the Toyota Corolla Altis (Best Passenger Car: Compact). After Mr Suresh, came the turn of En Abd Karim to present awards to the Mazda6 (Best Passenger Car: Mid-Sized), Lexus LS 460 Sport (Best Passenger Car: Large Premium), Perodua Alza (Best MPV: Small/Mid-Sized), and Hyundai Grand Starex Royale (Best MPV: Large).
The awards then took a quick break to allow Mr Greg Poarch, CFO of Jobstreet to present tokens of appreciation to members of the judging panel, which consisted of Azdee Amir, Andy Kow, Charlene Khoo, Lawrence Chong, Lim Beng Chuan, Keshy Dhillon, Ivan Khong, and Yap Kam Foo in addition to this writer, Jaime, and YS. The panel’s twelfth judge chose to remain anonymous and was thus not named on stage. Partners of the award, namely KPMG, SME Magazine, Goodyear and Gophers were also given a token each as a gesture of appreciation for their support.
The second half of the award then quickly got underway with Datuk Ali Kadir back on stage to present the Proton Exora with the ‘Best MPV: Overall Value for Money‘ award. Datuk Ali also presented to the Hyundai Tucson (Best SUV: Mid-Sized) and the Porsche Cayenne (Best SUV: Large Premium).
With ten awards already presented, the stage was then set for MAA President Datuk Aishah Ahmad to present the final four awards. The first hands that shook hers belonged to En Ismet Suki, UMW Toyota Motor’s new President, who was on stage to receive the ‘Best Pick-Up‘ award for the Toyota Hilux. There was double joy for Renault, with the Renault Megane RS going up twice in quick succession – first for the ‘Best Sports / Convertibles‘ award, and then quickly returning for the ‘Judges’ Choice Award‘.
There was a tinge of irony in the final award given for the night. Having collected the night’s first award, the Perodua Myvi hammered home its unwavering popularity by taking the ‘Autoworld Members’ Choice‘ award, which was determined solely by online voting and nothing else.
Reflecting on the overwhelming support received in organizing the award, Autoworld General Manager Jaime Cheng said, “I would like to thank our judges and also voters for their hard work and support for taking us this far, to the brink of presenting our first ever car awards. Support from our sponsors are equally pivotal to our success, and on behalf of the CIMB Autoworld Car Awards 2010 team, I cannot thank all parties enough for their kind and unwavering support.”
“This award simply would not be possible without the generous help of our title sponsors CIMB Bank, and also our partners, namely KPMG, Malaysian Automotive Association, and SME Magazine. We also received strong support from our colleagues in other publications, such as Zerotohundred.com, iProperty.com, Lelong.com, Motorsportchannel.com, and Fastlane of Singapore,” Jaime added.
Paying tribute to the field of nominated cars, Jaime said, “The judges were generally very happy at the overall quality of competition between the cars. Most cars gave good accounts of themselves and in some categories, the winners were decided by only very small margins. Not everybody was a winner today, but none of them can be considered as losers. To the winners, we say congratulations, job well done, and we hope to see you next year.”
