The International Car of the Year Awards
How Cars Reflect Our Lifestyle

Presented with the flair of a Hollywood production, the ICOTY Awards honor the International Car of the Year and International Truck of the Year. Nominees include vehicles that are manufactured by American, British, German, Japanese, Korean and Swedish automakers but are sold in the United States.

Launched in 1997 at the North American International Auto Show, the ICOTY Awards became the first automotive awards show to honor new vehicles based on the emotional connection between car and consumer. Today, the ICOTY Awards have evolved and honor vehicles based on lifestyle compatibility and how well automakers achieve that goal.

"The ICOTY Awards are not about power and performance, but rather about personality and passion," said ICOTY Executive Producer Courtney Caldwell.

Winning automakers were presented their prestigous trophies for the 2011 International Car and Truck of the Year at the NAIAS in Detroit.

And the winners are:

2011 International Car of the Year
Hyundai Sonata

2011 International Truck of the Year
Kia Sportage

In order to achieve a balanced perspective that reflects all consumers, ICOTY engages a diverse group of renowned automotive journalists and editors in the voting process. The ICOTY Jury consists of 12 reputable writers and editors who represent respected publications such as Kelley Blue Book, Consumer Guide Automotive, Auto Week, MSN Autos, and Cars.com, to name a few. Voting ballots are then sent to J.D. Power and Associates for final tabulation to ensure accuracy and credibility.

Today, ICOTY is the largest, most professionally produced auto awards show in the industry, an event which has been coined by industry leaders as the Academy Awards of Cars.

The criteria on which votes are cast can be found in the ICOTY AWARDS archive section under 'Awards Criteria.' Each vehicle must be of in-production models of the new year.

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