Caprice tops Middle East luxury award

Judges for this year's Autocar Middle East Awards have deemed the Australian-built Chevrolet Caprice Best Luxury Car for 2006.

Flagship in GM Holden's range for export, the Chevrolet Caprice pipped Volvo S80 AWD and Lexus ES350 for the honour.

"The Caprice represents unbeatable value given its list of standard features, size and that six-litre V8 engine," Autocar Editor and chief judge, Damien Reid said.

"Given that it's an all-new model, our judges were impressed by the improvement in build quality, ride and overall refinement over the previous model. As it was judged against its competitors the panel found this latest version had retained many qualities which makes this style of car so popular to Middle Eastern customers," Reid added.

According to GM Holden, the first shipment of export versions of Commodore, Statesman and Caprice to the Middle East was dispatched in September 2006. The cars, prepared as the Chevrolet Lumina and Chevrolet Caprice, are exported throughout the Middle East as part of Australia's longest and largest automotive export program.

GM Holden Export Manager, Emma Pinwill, said receiving the Best Luxury Car Award was an important milestone for GM Holden's export program to the Middle East, which justified the $190 million investment in the development of the WM series.

"It is a great honour to be recognized in the Middle East as our success there has supported GM Holden in taking the WM series to a whole new level of design and engineering," Pinwill said.

In 2005 Holden last year exported 60,518 vehicles around the world, a record for the company since its export program started in 1954. Cars were sent to every continent except Antarctica.