The Volkswagen Jetta Sport 2.0 TDI DSG has taken the top honours at the 30th annual Caravan Club Towcar of the Year Competition in London.
A panel of ten judges awarded the prize to the tourer, praising its design and practicality as a caravanning family car, as well as its excellent performance in a variety of difficult towing situations.
The accolade represents a major coup for Volkswagen, with this popular Jetta model claiming the prize for the second year in succession – becoming the first car in the history of the event to do so.
Caravan Club Chairman, Grenville Chamberlain, described the tourer as “terrific” noting that “it really is a great vehicle and it proved itself time and time again with the judges during testing”.
It was a year of firsts at the Caravan Club awards, with this year’s competition representing the first time in which the categorisation of entrants was decided by Vehicle Excise Duty tax bands, rather than the usual price class system.
This change was implemented by the Club in a bid to provide more relevant information on issues like the environmental footprint of the various towcars being assessed, to its one million members.
All of the models put forward as part of the competition had to undergo a number of stringent tests which were designed to ensure all award winners were truly at the top of their range.
This included acceleration and reversing tests, which were undertaken alongside the traditional assessments like emergency braking, high-speed towing circuits, hill-stop and restart tests, ride and handling evaluations and a mid-range 30-60 mph acceleration examination.
Judges involved in the testing process were joined by a special celebrity guest, with Sir Ranulph Fiennes watching over the various assessments.
The legendary explorer was also on hand to give at the awards at the subsequent ceremony in London and the five class winners were the Volkswagen CC, the Chevrolet Captiva, the Mercedes-Benz ML350, and the Skoda Yeti.
