Renault and Land Rover win top awards at the prestigious Tow Car Awards 2014
The hotly contested Tow Car Awards 2014 took place this week with the Renault Captur and the Land Rover Discovery scooping the top prize in their respective categories.
The competition – which sets out to discover the best tow cars on the market for the country’s thousands of caravan enthusiasts – brought in a record 56 cars, all tested by professionals from The Camping and Caravanning Club, Practical Caravan Club and What Car?
Making an informed decision about the high-value purchases, judges decided that the eye-catching Renault Captur 1.5 dCi Dynamique MediaNav’s performance placed it top in the Best Ultralight Tow Car category. This is the company’s first compact crossover car, which is stylish, innovative, fun to drive, well priced, and combines MPV versatility with SUV looks. ‘<' . strtolower('Array') href="http://www.caravantimes.co.uk/features/industry/feature-the-year-of-the-luxury-crossover-$21384303.htm">The crossover is becoming quite a trend this year for SUV’s, something you may remember we covered a few weeks back on CaravanTimes.
Speaking about the Renault Captur – which has a towing limit of 900kg – judges said the car should be “at the top of their shortlist” for anyone with a trailer tent to tow.
“Stability at speed proved excellent, as the car felt solid at 60mph and beyond,” determined the panel. “In the lane-change test, direct steering and well-controlled suspension kept car and trailer in line. Our practicality team found room for all the holiday luggage bar one item, and were impressed by the Captur’s high noseweight limit, relative to its towing capacity.”
It was another triumphant year for Land Rover, with its Discovery 3.0 SDV6 XS becoming the most successful model in the Tow Car Awards’ history, with seven awards in eight years.
Judged highest in the 1900kg+ category, the Discovery has been head and shoulders above the rest in the field, with the panel declaring: “It is going to take a really superb car to beat the Discovery. Power, performance, stability, practicality – it has the lot.”
The expert judges were extremely impressed by the ease with which the Discovery performs towing duties, in particular its “confident and decisive” overtaking and “smooth, unflustered” manner in which it can be slowed.
It was a double success for Land Rover at this year’s competition with the Range Rover Sport 3.0 SDV6 Autobiography Dynamic picking up the new Money No Object Award.
Possessing ultimate luxury and towing ability, the Range Rover Sport was praised by judges as a “phenomenal tow car”, with its stability being a stand out feature.
“Towing at 60mph feels like 40mph in the Sport, and the Range Rover seemed impervious to crosswinds, even at speeds that would have your collar felt on a British motorway,” added the judges.
For more information on the entire Renault range, visit www.renault.co.uk and for further information on the Land Rover range, visit www.uk.media.landrover.com.
