Toyota, Lexus top Auto Focus Awards

The Philippine automotive market’s best-selling standard mid-sized sports utility vehicle, the Toyota Fortuner, and Lexus’ luxury compact SUV, the new NX200t, nailed the prestigious “Automobile of the Year” title in their respective categories at the Awards Night of the “2015-2016 Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards” (AFPCA) held on October 16, 2015 at the Grand Ballroom of the Valle Verde Country Club in Pasig City. Both are first-time winners of the top award.

The AFPCA, which is now on its 11th year, is a nationwide public poll to determine the country’s most popular automobile brands and models and is organized by Sunshine Television (STV). The public poll ran from April 1 to September 30 this year. As in the previous year, the unique selection process involved the incorporation of poll results with unit sales to yield a final overall score for each of over 140 models in the official entry list. Official sales volume data for the AFPCA was furnished by Stradcom Corporation with the official sanction of the Land Transportation Office (LTO). The data covered only “completely built” and “new imported” units that were put in for new registration with the LTO from January to September 2015. So-called grey market vehicles were excluded.