Overdrive Awards - 2011

Establishing India’s most comprehensive and authoritative awards in the automotive sector, CNBC-TV18, in association with ICICI Bank Car Loans and Overdrive Magazine gave away the eleventh edition of the CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Awards in a glittering ceremony held in Mumbai on 4th January, 2011. The awards aimed at the road ahead for the auto industry with increasing need for green technology and environment conservation.
With sustainability and environment conservation being the need of the hour, automobile manufacturers are under constant pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of their vehicles. CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Awards 2011 reiterated this need for green technology by bringing together all the industry stakeholders on a single platform and highlighting the road ahead for the Indian automobile sector.
The winners of ‘CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Awards 2011’ are:
Compact Car of the year – Ford Figo
Mid-sized Car of the year – Toyota Etios
Premium Automobile of the year – BMW 5 Series
Performance Bike of the year – Suzuki GSX-R1000
Performance Car of the year – Audi A4 3.0TDI
Import Car of the year – Mercedes SLS AMG
Import Bike of the year – Ducati Monster 796
Import SUV of the year – Hyundai Santa Fe
Engine of the year – Suzuki K12B
Scooter of the year – TVS Wego
Premium Hatchback of the Year – VW Polo
Auto commercial of the year (Car) – Honda Jazz-X – Meridien Communications
Auto Commercial of the Year (Bike) – Bajaj Discover – Lowe Lintas
Green Award of the year – Toyota Prius
Motorsport award of the year – VW Motorsport
SUV/UV of the Year – Skoda Yeti
Manufacturer of the year – Maruti Suzuki India
Hall of Pride – Bajaj Pulsar
Viewer’s Choice Award (4-wheelers) – Ford Figo
Viewer’s Choice Award (2-wheelers) – Yamaha SZ-X
Bike of the Year – Honda Twister
Car of the year – Toyota Etios
CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Awards 2011 also presented a special commendation to the Mumbai Traffic Police commemorating their work and to keep Mumbai a safer place. The Mumbai Traffic Police works around the clock to ensure smooth flowing traffic, reduced accidents while striving to imbibe traffic rules and discipline among road users. Notwithstanding the unpredictable weather conditions or the unfortunate incidents like 26/11, the Mumbai Traffic Police goes above and beyond its call of duty to make a “Better Mumbai”. For being true to its mission and managing one of the world’s most difficult cities, CNBC TV-18 Overdrive Awards 2011 felicitated the outstanding work that Mumbai Traffic Police has been doing over the years.
The winners of ‘CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Awards 2011’ were evaluated by an elite jury comprising of senior editorial staffers of OVERDRIVE, the best drivers and evaluators in India and automotive experts of national and global renown. This includes Formula 1 ace Karun Chandhok, arguably the fastest and most skilled driver in the country today, Indian National Rally champion and the only Indian to have won in the Asia Pacific championship and scored points in the Production World Rally Championship Gaurav Gill, 5-time national rally champion and tester of renown Hari Singh, V K Vishwanathan, M D of Bosch India, Editor of OVERDRIVE Sirish Chandran and Deputy Editors of OVERDRIVE Bertrand D’souza and Shubhabrata Marmar. Judging and evaluation of all the vehicles is based on a wide ranging set of parameters including design, engineering, powertrains, performance, efficiency, emissions, value and relevance to the Indian automotive context. All the jury members are experts at evaluating cars and bikes with unrivalled testing experience. In addition the jury is assisted by the objective test data and analysis of OVERDRIVE magazine, which has exhaustively tested all the eligible vehicles.
Viewer’s choice car / bike of the year received over 3000 entries from on-ground, online and SMS responses. CNBC-TV18 also conducted an on-ground activity wherein they visited colleges, cinema halls etc. to gauge responses resulting into the winning entries.
It is important to note that all vehicles launched and homologated for sale in India from the 1st of January 2010 to the 31st of December 2010 were eligible for these awards.
The objective of the award was to find a single, decisive winner. The voting process, therefore, was designed to pick one outstanding contender and not to provide a scale of merit of the competing cars.