The Car Awards Group, Inc. (CAGI), the award-giving body of the Car of the Year Awards-Philippines, is set to kick-off with its first round of vehicle testing and evaluation at the exclusive Forest Hills Golf and Country Club Complex in Antipolo, Rizal in search for the 2006 Car of the Year Awards-Philippines winners.
Based on the results of the qualitative and quantitative tests to be conducted by at least 60 motoring journalists from print and broadcast media, the CAGI will declare the top award of Car of the Year-Philippines out of the 72 different vehicles now available in the local market.
"We have learned a lot from last year’s testing process and the new board has drafted a new set of rules to address such concerns and limitations. We have also included more criteria and categories for this year to avoid category overlaps," CAGI president Manny de los Reyes said.
"More importantly, the categorization is now more price-sensitive to reflect the realities of the market," he added.
In this year’s event, the CAGI members will be using a state-of-the-art GPS-based testing equipment courtesy of Top Gear Magazine. Rally race veterans Dennis Santos, Andre Palma, Raul Asuncion, Barry Ortiz and Joey Lanuza have expressed their intention to assist CAGI members in the conduct of the quantitative testing.
The qualitative and quantitative testing will be conducted on the well-paved roads of Forest Hills Golf Club in Antipolo, Rizal that has a good combination of short straight, sweeping curves and tight corners.
As described by De los Reyes, who is also editor-in-chief of Speed Magazine, the Forest Hills route has a lot of elevation changes that can test the vehicle’s torque, traction and braking efficiency.
The changes in the awards categorization included the renaming of the Asian Utility Vehicle into Multi-Purpose vehicle in order to rationalize the gray areas that were previously raised like the branding of crossovers and people movers for AUVs. The MPV category was split into two – Entry Level MPV and Luxury MPV.
The CAGI also expanded the classification on price differentiation "to reflect actual purchase reference. For example, the 1600cc Corollas and Civics will not be included in the category for the BMW 316.
The first round of test will be on Jan. 14 to 15 for the Best Compact Car category. Among the vehicles being eyed for testing include Chevrolet Optra, Ford Focus four-door, Ford Focus five-door (hatchback), Hyundai Matrix CDRi, Mazda 3 2.0, Mazda 3 five-door, Mitsubishi Lancer and Nissan Sentra I-style.
CAGI has again tapped the tallying service of the prestigious accounting firm SGV&Co.
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