European Car of the Year A shortlist of seven cars is selected by a simple vote. For the final round of voting, each jury member has 25 points to distribute among the finalists. The points must be distributed to at least five cars, with no more than ten to any one car, and no joint top marks. The voting is open, and each jury member provides published justification for their vote distribution. Under these rules, the decisiveness of the victory has varied greatly. For example, in 1988, the Peugeot 405 won by 212 points, the biggest gap in the history of the "European Car of
European Car of the Year Rover 2000 saloon was the inaugural winner in 1964 while the Austin 1800 was victorious in 1965. The Rover won over another British contender, the rear-engine Hillman Imp. The Renault 16 was the world's first production hatchback car and unsurprisingly won the award for 1966, having been launched at the beginning of 1965. A year later, the award went to the Fiat 124, which won more than twice as many as voted as its nearest competitor, the BMW 1600. Fiat missed out the following year, however, when its 125 was pipped to the award by the revolutionary new NSU Ro80,