Defender Voted What Car Favourite

[Simes2000]

The British-built new Land Rover Defender has come top in the What Car? Reader Awards 2009, beating 387 other models covering 52 brands.

The new Land Rover Defender got the highest average overall rating from over 20,000 reader reviews on www.whatcar.com.

What Car? editor Steve Fowler said: “The new Land Rover Defender has always had a devoted following and owners love what the car does for them. It’s far from the most sophisticated car on the road, but its no-nonsense approach and longevity are what our readers like most about it.”

The new Fiat 500 topped the Supermini category, while the new Jaguar XJ topped the Executive and Luxury Cars category. The highest rated coupe was the Audi A5 and the best Open-Top Car was the Mazda MX-5 roadster.

Meanwhile, the new Skoda Octavia got top marks in the small family car category, while at the other end of the market Porsche topped the performance car category.

Ford were double winners with the Ford Mondeo voted best estate car and the C-Max voted top MPV by What Car? readers.

However, the convertible Ford Focus CC came bottom of the pile with readers complaining that it let as much rain in with the roof up as the roof down.

Whatcar.com, launched in 1996, gets over 1.1million unique users each month, with readers encouraged to rate their own cars alongside the ratings from What Car? experts.

The results of the inaugural Reader Awards are published online and in the December issue of What Car? magazine on sale on Monday 26 October.