At the ICOTY/IMOTY awards ceremony yesterday at Mumbai’s Sofitel hotel, Maruti Suzuki, Royald Enfield and Volvo came away the big winners.

 

The Swift was declared the Indian Car Of The Year 2018, fighting off competition from cars like the Hyundai Santro (2nd place), the Honda Amaze (3rd place), the Mahindra Alturas G4, the Toyota Yaris, the Honda CR-V and others.

 

Meanwhile, the Interceptor won the Indian Motorcycle of The Year 2018 award by a landslide, over other bikes like the Yamaha YZF R15 (2nd place), the TVS Apache RR 310 (3rd place) and several others.

The Premium Car Of the Year 2018, an award instituted for the first time, was won by the Volvo XC40, the firm’s most affordable SUV.

 

At the event, Dr. Raghupati Singhania, Chairman & Managing Director, JK Tyre & Industries Limited, which has been sponsoring the awards since their inception, gave away the trophies to Kenichi Ayukawa, MD and CEO, Maruti Suzuki, Siddhartha Lal, CEO, Royal Enfield and Charles Frump, MD, Volvo Car India

 

ICOTY and IMOTY are an expert and independent judgement of the best new car and bike, and the award has been getting increasing prominence with each passing year. The jury, of which MW is a part, consists of the seniormost auotmotive journalists in India, namely Yogendra Pratap,  Rahul Ghosh, Abhik Das (Auto Today), Dhruv Behl, Ishan Raghava  Arup Das, Jared Solomon (AutoX), Aspi Bhathena, Sarmad Kadiri (Car/Bike India), Sirish Chandran, Aninda Sardar (Evo India), Kartik Ware, Raunak Ajinkya (Motoring World), Shubhabrata Marmar, Abhay Verma, Rohit Paradkar (Overdrive),  Girish Karkera, Agasti Kaulgi, Devesh Shobha, Debabrata Sarkar (Top Gear), Muralidhar Swaminathan (The Hindu Business Line), Pablo Chaterji (Man’s World), Hani Musthafa (Flywheel) and Vikrant Singh (CarWale/BikeWale).