The Indian Car of The Year Awards (ICOTY) is an expert award hosted yearly which is given to the new car which performs the best in all aspects including- price, fuel-efficiency, styling, comfort, safety, performance, practicality, technical innovation, value for money and suitability for Indian driving conditions. This award was given birth to in the year 2005 by all of the expert journalists of leading car magazines. ICOTY is referred to as the ‘Oscars’ of the Indian automotive industry.
This year the ICOTY Awards was held on the 26th of February and it’s jury members included Yogendra Pratap, Chairman, ICOTY, Aspi Bhathena and Sarmad Kadiri from Car India, Muralidhar Swaminathan from The Hindu, Sirish Chandran and Aniruddha Rangnekar from Evo, Rahul Ghosh from Auto Today, Pablo Chaterji and Kartik Ware from Motoring World, Dhruv Behl and Ishan Raghava from AutoX, Kushan Mitra from Pioneer, Girish Karkera from Times Auto, Bertrand D’souza and Bob Rupani from Overdrive, Kranti Sambhav from Times Drive, and Vikrant Singh from CarWale.
Even though the previous year was a bit of a hiccup, there were new and great contenders in the market for the show to go on. The list of cars that were nominated for the ICOTY Award 2021 was as follows-
1. Honda City
2. Hyundai Aura
3. Hyundai Creta
4. Hyundai i20
5. Kia Carnival
6. Kia Sonet
7. Mahindra Thar
8. MG Gloster
9. Tata Altroz
Out of these cars, the car that emerged as the best car of the year was the Hyundai i20 with 104 points followed by Kia Sonet with 91 points and Mahindra Thar with 78 points.
The contenders for the 2021 Premium Car included-
1. Audi A8,
2. Audi Q2
3. Audi Q8
4. BMW 2 Series
5. BMW 8 Series
6. Land Rover Defender
7. Lexus LC 500h
8. Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door
9. Mercedes-Benz GLE
10. Mercedes-Benz GLS
11. Porsche Cayenne Coupe
Out of these, Land Rover Defender took the awards with 108 points, followed by Mercedes-Benz GLE with 77 points and BMW 2 Series with 61 points.
Since the EVs and Hybrids are also getting a lot of attention lately by consumers in the Indian markets, this time there was also a Special Green Car Award which was distributed. The nominees of this award were–
1. Hyundai Kona
2. MG ZS EV
3. Tata Nexon EV
4. Toyota Camry Hybrid
5. Mercedes-Benz EQC
6. Lexus ES 300h
The winner for this category was Tata Nexon with 106 points with Hyundai Kona Electric at second place with 99 points and MG’s ZS EV at third with 93 points
The Indian Motorcycle of the Year Award was contested by the following motorcycles-
1. Bajaj Dominar 250
2. Hero Glamour 125
3. Hero Passion Pro
4. Hero Xtreme 160R
5. Royal Enfield Meteor 350
6. Honda Hornet 2.0
7. Husqvarna Svartpilen 250
8. KTM 250 Adventure
9. KTM 390 Adventure
There was one winner in this category that took the award- Royal Enfield Meteor 350.