C-Class is carsales.com.au Car of the Year

The Mercedes-Benz C-Class is the 2014 carsales.com.au Car of the Year. The new mid-size luxury sedan was announced as the winner of the re-launched awards in Melbourne this morning.

The all-new W205-series C-Class was also the winner of the Best Prestige Car under $100K category in the awards, which now combine a unique blend of critical evaluation, ownership cost, retained value, consumer engagement and affordability assessments.

Offering levels of finish, refinement, comfort and safety more commonly seen in $200,000-plus European limousines, the new C-Class range kicks off from just over $60,000. Its best selling variant is priced from under $70,000.

carsales.com.au’s revealed its motoring Recommends awards in August. The carsales.com.au Car of the Year awards utilises motoring’s 13 lifestyle category recommendations as a shortlist and leverages data from the automotive network’s Redbook and DataMotive division to refine each segment. motoring’s editors then award the carsales.com.au Car of the Year gong to the most deserving of the category winners.

The lifestyle categories for carsales.com.au Car of the Year and motoring.com.au Recommends align with search functionality across the carsales network. Each category has data-based eligibility criteria.

On the announcement of the C-Class' victory this morning, carsales.com.au CEO and Managing Director, Greg Roebuck stated: "Mercedes-Benz’s new C-Class impressed our motoring.com.au experts and stacked up on all-important consumer factors including cost to run, retained value and, relative to its segment, affordability.

"Consumer engagement too was strong — the C-Class is a favourite of Australian prestige car buyers. It's a worthy winner of the new carsales.com.au Car of the Year award,” he said.

Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific CEO, Horst von Sanden (pictured right), told motoring.com.au the award was recognition of the excellence of the new C-Class.

"We are incredibly proud to have won the inaugural carsales.com.au Car of the Year Award," he stated.

"The award is especially important and relevant to the consumer as carsales.com.au has combined editorial opinion and significant road testing expertise with data-based criteria to award C-Class against some very strong competition.

"The previous-generation W204 C-Class was Australia’s favorite luxury car for more than seven years. The new W205 C-Class continues to set sales records with its mix of modern luxury, style and class-leading safety, technology and value,” von Sanden said.

carsales.com.au and motoring.com.au Editor-in-Chief, Mike Sinclair (pictured left) said the C-Class won out in two closely fought eliminations.

“The Best Prestige Car under $100K segment was the tightest of all 13 categories in terms of results — the C-Class beat the second-placed car by a very small margin. The same can be said for the final vote for carsales.com.au Car of the Year," he said.

“That the votes were so close doesn’t discount the C-Class’ excellence but rather is an indication of the competitiveness of the new-vehicle marketplace and the robust nature of the new carsales.com.au Car of the Year award process.

“Expert opinion is an important part of the equation but so too are the ownership and market factors we've incorporated in the awards,” he stated.

Alongside the 2014 carsales.com.au Car of the Year, the winners of the Award's 13 lifestyle categories were also announced today. Volkswagen was the 'winningest' brand, taking out three categories: Best City Car, Best Family Car under $30K and Best Tradie with the Polo, Golf and Amarok respectively.

Mercedes-Benz, Mazda and Porsche were the other multi-category winners. Ford, Jeep and Toyota each took out a single category win in the awards.

The full list of category winners in carsales.com.au Car of the Year Awards can be seen below.

To qualify for the 2014 awards, new cars must be available for sale to the general public via recognised OEM (manufacturer or approved importer) channels before September 1, 2014. Vehicles that go on sale after this date qualify for consideration in the 2015 awards.

For the new carsales.com.au Car of the Year awards, Redbook calculates cost to run and retained value based on an ownership period of three years and total mileage of 60,000km.

Eligibility for price-defined categories is based on the recommended retail price of the base model under consideration. All expert evaluation, ownership costs and affordability calculations are based on the price, packaging and equipment of the respective top-selling variants.

2014 carsales.com.au Car of the Year Award winners

Car of the Year: Mercedes-Benz C-Class
Best First Car — Ford Fiesta
Best City Car — Volkswagen Polo
Best Family Car under $30K — Volkswagen Golf
Best Family Car over $30K — Mazda6
Best SUV under $50K — Mazda CX-5
Best SUV over $50K — Porsche Macan
Best Prestige Car under $100K — Mercedes-Benz C-Class
Best Prestige Car over $100K — Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class
Best Performance Car under $100K — Subaru WRX STI
Best Performance Car over $100K — Porsche Cayman