AUTOCAR AWARDS NAME ONLY THE CREAM OF THE CAR INDUSTRY
THIS IS AN INDUSTRY like no other, and the Autocar Awards are like no other. This week, we honour the cars and people that have truly made a difference to our industry and to furthering our love of cars, including a salute to our five-star road test heroes. A five-star Autocar road-test verdict is highly prized by manufacturers and readers alike. Five-star verdicts are very rare; cars need to be truly special to achieve one. In this Awards year we’ve had just three, the latest of which, the Mclaren 720S, you can read about this week.
The people who made the 720S are special themselves and are among those we honoured at our awards ceremony at Silverstone last night.
Perhaps the most special story of all, though, is that of Jaguar Land Rover boss Ralf Speth, who in 2010 took over a company that had already decided to shut one of its three UK factories. Speth reversed that decision, and seven years later he has trebled sales, opened factories around the world and makes profits that run into the billions. For that, we have awarded him our highest honour, the Issigonis Trophy. Steve Cropley tells Speth’s remarkable story on p50.