The The Mid Size Car of the Year award winning Fiat Linea is joined on the tarmac at Amby Valley airstrip by the Skoda Fabia (Compact Car of the Year), Fiat 500 (Import of the Year), VW Jetta (Premium Car of the Year), Chevrolet Captiva (UV of the Year), Honda Civic Hybrid (Green Award), Suzuki Maruti (Manufacturer of the Year). The Fiat Linea has collected its second major automotive honour in India within days, this time Overdrive magazine has honoured the locally-built C-segment sedan as the Mid Size Car of the Year 2009 in its annual awards.

The Fiat Linea has collected its second major award in India within days, this time Overdrive magazine has honoured it as the Mid Size Car of the Year 2009. The new C-segment 3-box sedan is arriving in the Fiat showrooms across India this month after its launch was delayed by a month. The Linea is being built locally by the joint Fiat-Tata factory at Ranjangaon in Pune.

"Fiat’s Linea is a very, very important car," said Overdrive in its summing up of the Linea's award for Mid Size Car of the Year 2009. Overdrive presented the awards to the winners at a well-attended event on January 9 in Mumbai. "The runaway C-segment race has been incomplete without a proper diesel offering and that’s been addressed," continued the magazine's summing up. "Not only does the Linea offer that highly attractive alternative, the motor in question is wrapped in a deliciously Italian sedan that’s perfectly suited to Indian tastes. The robust car is well suited to India, offers loads on interior room and best of all, is superb value for your money.

"The Linea was due for a December 2008 launch," added Overdrive, "but unfortunate events in Mumbai led to the postponement of the launch to January 2009. Fiat chose not to celebrate the new launch in the middle of a nationwide crisis. So we chose to reciprocate by still considering the car for the awards. That it has won the award, of course, is purely down to the car's excellence.

The jury was made up of the magazine's team, Overdrive editor Sirish Chandran was joined by rising India TV star and tester for the magazine Bertrand D’souza. Next up was Hari Singh who has won no less than five national rally championships as well as the inaugural Asia Zone Rally Championship. The Flying Sikh is today, perhaps the most respected name in automotive testing circles, while another tester has a strong rallying background: Gaurav Gill is one of India's young rising stars of the dirt tracks. More motorsport input on the team came from Karun Chandhok who is aiming to become an F1 driver. Tutu Dhavan is an ex-Himalayan Rally firecracker, noted car restorer and historian and an all-round automotive expert. The jury was completed by biker testers Shubhabrata Marmar and Vijayendra Vikram.

This year’s test course was laid at the spacious Amby Valley airstrip, near Lonavala in Maharashtra. Keeping in mind the magazine's enthusiast focus, the course would bring out the contenders’ abilities in all dynamic areas. The 1.2km course included a tight and twisty handling section, corners, two braking areas, one double lane change, two extended acceleration areas and a slalom. A rapid run through the course would give the judges the space to analyse every aspect of a car’s dynamics. With all the contenders assembled, fuelled and ready to run, the judges went to work.

Each judge was given a maximum of 25 points per category for their evaluation. The scientifically designed, internationally recognised methodology ensures not only that all the cars got their due, but that impartiality was central to the scoring. Each judge could give a maximum of ten points to his favourite car and there couldn't be a tie for their pick of the categories cars. The judge had also to ensure that at least four cars per category received points. Scoring for each judge was confidential and the magazine's validation partners Ernst & Young observed the entire judging process before whisking away the score sheets to their super secret facility for final tabulation.

Two factors furthered the cause of a well-rounded, impartial judgement. Firstly, the judges were picked to represent a wide spectrum of automotive expertise. In addition to Overdrive's own quartet of prolific testers it had racing drivers from tarmac and off-road disciplines and two highly experienced testers who are stalwarts in the field of actual automotive testing as well as excellent racing drivers with impressive records in motorsport in India and abroad. The combination ensured that scoring was based on defined parameters designed to reflect our market. Which meant how relevant a car was relevant to our market, whether it was value for money or not and sheer superiority in its segment were given weightage in addition, of course, to the various performance and dynamics aspects.

Other category winners in the Overdrive 2009 awards include the Skoda Fabia (Compact Car of the Year), Fiat 500 (Import of the Year), VW Jetta (Premium Car of the Year), Chevrolet Captiva (SUV of the Year), Honda Civic Hybrid (Green Award), Suzuki Maruti (Manufacturer of the Year), Pawan Kant Munjal (Hall of Fame), Pulsar Mania (Commercial of the Year) and Maruti Suzuki KB 10 Engine (Technology of the Year).