The Indian Car of the Year (ICOTY) and the Indian Motorcycle of the Year (IMOTY) 2014 took place at The Ashok Hotel. The event was organised by leading leading automobile magazines in collaboration with JK Tyre.
Arun K Bajoria, president & director, JK Tyre & Industries limited along with Girish Karkera, editor BBC TopGear India & Chairman ICOTY and Vikrant Singh, executive editor, Overdrive & chairman IMOTY handed over the Indian Car of the Year trophy to the Hyundai Grand i10 and the Indian Motorcycle of the Year trophy to the Royal Enfield Continental GT.
The awards witnessed eminent guests including scions of the corporate world, senior officials from the auto industry and representatives from industry bodies.
The ICOTY & IMOTY are the most credible and coveted automotive awards of the country. These awards are an expert and independent judgment of the best new car and motorcycle. They are aimed at recognising focused, consistent and rigorous efforts made by auto manufacturers, with the highest levels of performance in the areas of design excellence, innovation and R&D. The awards have been gaining prominence with each passing year. JK Tyre has been associated with these awards since its inception.
It is pertinent to note that though many new cars and motorcycles were launched in the year 2013, around 17 qualified for the 2014 ICOTY and IMOTY award of which 9 made it to the final shortlist. These were further evaluated during a jury round at lonavala, near Mumbai on December 9. It was a close competition in both categories. Hyundai Grand i10, Honda Amaze and Ford Ecosport eventually finished as the top three finalists for ICOTY, while the top three for the IMOTY included the Royal Enfield Continental GT, KTM Duke 390 and Hyosung Aquila Pro. The nominated cars and motorcycles were judged on various parameters such as price, fuel efficiency, styling, comfort, safety, performance, practicality, and technical innovation, value for money and suitability for Indian driving conditions.
Congratulating the winners, Arun K Bajoria, said, “The ICOTY and IMOTY Awards bear testimony of JK Tyre’s relentless commitment to the advancement and strengthening of auto ancillary industry in India. This is a preferred platform brought alive to acknowledge and reward companies that feel the pulse of customers and develop products in close accordance. I would like to congratulate the winners as well as the nominees of ICOTY & IMOTY 2014, who are leaders in true sense of the automotive industry. Together we will continue striving towards newer benchmarks for India as well as the global automobile market.”
This year’s jury for ICOTY and IMOTY constituted of Girish Karkera and Sriram Narayanan (BBC TopGear), Vikrant Singh, Bertrand D’Souza and Subhabrata Marmar (Overdrive), Yogendra Pratap and Rahul Ghosh (Auto Bild), Bob Rupani and Gautam Sen (Auto India), Dhruv Behl and Ashish Jha (AutoX), Pablo Chatterji, Rohin Nagrani and Kartik Ware (Motoring), Aspi Bhathena and Sarmad Kadiri (Car India & Bike India), Sirish Chandran (Evo India) and Muralidhar Swaminathan (journalist).