Jaguar F-Pace named World Car of the Year

Editor's note: The writer, a regular contributor to Globe Drive, is a member of the 75-member international panel that voted on the World Car of the Year awards.

The Jaguar F-Pace was named 2017 World Car of the Year this week at the New York International Auto Show. It's the first time an SUV has won the award in its 13-year history.

It was a good day for the F-Pace, which was also named World Car Design of the Year at the same ceremony. The Porsche Boxster / Cayman was named World Performance Car, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class was named World Luxury Car, and the Toyota Prius Prime was named World Green Car. In a new award category, the BMW i3 was named World Urban Car of the Year. See the short list in each category below.

"Can you imagine, a little company like us, winning this award?" said the clearly thrilled Ralph Speth, the CEO of Jaguar Land Rover. "We are a small team and we really wanted to deliver something special. We want to transform our company, but we also want to contribute to the innovation in the industry."

All three contenders for the World Car title were SUVs. The Jaguar beat the Audi Q5 and Volkswagen Tiguan for the overall title. Not all contenders have to be sold in Canada or even North America, but all are sold on at least two continents.

The F-Pace is an exceptional vehicle, and deserves both its awards. It was at the top of my ballot, although it's too early to know if Jaguar's bugbear of reliability has been put to rest.

Before last year's launch, Jaguar was criticized for being late to market with its compact SUV – almost all other automakers had already released vehicles into that highly competitive and lucrative segment.

The launch of the F-Pace gave Jaguar a huge boost in Canada, and this year, sales for the company have already tripled.