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Wheels Names Holden VE Commodore Car Of The Year

When I heard that Wheels had named the Holden VE Commodore range as the "car of the year", I started wondering why anyone still even buys wheels? Every single cover that I've looked at in the last year seems to have some sort of 'Ford XR6 vs Commodore SS vs XR8 vs GTS vs HSV etc etc etc"... comeon guys, there really are other types of cars apart from the Falcon and the Commodore.

Alborz Fallah

20:3423 January 2007

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So yes, Wheels magazine put together 21 possible cars for the car of the year award, with such worthy adversaries such as:

Alfa Romeo 159,

BMW 3 Series Coupe,

Honda Civic,

Hyundai Elantra and Santa Fe,

Mazda CX-7,

Mitsubishi Colt and Outlander,

Toyota Camry, Rav4 and Aurion,

Audi Q7 and Audi TT,

Mercedes Benz S-Class,

Porsche Cayman,

Volkswagen Passat

Volvo C70.

You gotta wonder how Wheels came to pick the VE Commodore as a better car, than say, the Audi TT? Or heck even the Toyota Aurion! Of course wheels says that extensive testing and effort was put into deciding the car of the year, but something tells me that the car of the year awards were decided before the testing even began.

"Every model in the VE range shares the same excellent key core attributes. These provided the foundation for Holden's victory," Wheels editor Ged Bulmer said as he announced the winner in Melbourne tonight.

"There is no such thing as the perfect car – but the Holden VE Commodore's strengths significantly outweigh any weaknesses, putting it ahead of its rivals."

Holden VE's strenghts significantly outweigh its weaknesses? One only needs to take a quick look at the recall section of this site to notice that the VE commodore, in its short 6 month life span, has already had two recalls, has a higher fuel economy than the Toyota Aurion (although Wheels has mentioned in a recent issue that infact, the Aurion uses more fuel than the Commodore - right....).

Its a shame that a magazine such as Wheels, which has been around for nearly 45 years can be so easily bought out. But hey, Holden fans rejoice right?