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 versions of which had been largely overlooked by the contest's judges. Fiat made in nine victories in the contest when it won the 2008 award with the 500 model, a retro-styled take on its iconic small car which had first been launched 50 years earlier. The next award went to a more traditional and mainstream offering, when Vauxhall/Opel won the award for only the third time with its Insignia. Volkswagen's Polo supermini had been around in several forms since its launch in the mid 1970s, but the all-new version launched in 2009 was the first generation of Polo to win