The new Clio emerged as the winner with just five points more than the Volkswagen Passat. The car was especially praised for its quality, safety, comfort and space. Several described it as the new benchmark for its category. This is the first repeat win in the history of the award; the first Clio was Car of the Year 1991. A Renault model has won the Car of the Year on six occasions, the previous being the Mégane, three year before.

The winner takes all. No less than 37 jurors gave their top points to the hybrid Toyota. The margin of victory was higher than any winner since the first Ford Focus six years ago. The second placed Citroën C4 scored twice as many top nominations as the new Focus, but the Ford received points from all Jury members – as did the winner.

The gathering of seven notable cars for the final voting produced a very close assessment, with no less than five cars receiving more than 200 points each. The small Panda got the same number of individual top positions than Volkswagen Golf, but the amount of second places was decisive, as it was for Mazda3 tie with Golf (see voting grid).