Nissan GT-R named car of the year

The Nissan GT-R has been named as MSN Cars' car of the year 2009 with almost a third of the poll's 80,000 votes.

The motor cruised ahead of its competitors, with the second place Jaguar XF receiving just 12 per cent of the votes cast.

Previous winners have been the Audi R8 (2008), BMW 3-Series Coupé (2007), Bugatti Veyron (2006) and Britain's own Aston Martin DB9 (2005).

Tom Evans, content manager of MSN Cars, said: "Congratulations to Nissan and its revolutionary GT-R for capturing the imagination of the British motoring public.

"Britain's passion and drive for the world's most well-crafted supercars continues, even during times of economic hardship. This is clearly demonstrated as over 80,000 people voted for their top motors, more than doubling the number of votes of last year's poll."

Italian car-maker Ferrari has featured in MSN's car of the year's top three since 2005 and this year saw its new Ferrari California take 3rd place with 11 per cent of the votes.

John Parslow, sports car marketing manager at Nissan GB said: "We are thrilled to get such a strong public endorsement as being given the MSN Cars 'Car of the Year 2009', it really is a testament to Nissan's vision that we created the Nissan GT-R as a high performance car that responds faithfully to the driver's wishes, whether on the road or on the racetrack.

"To receive votes directly from the British public in the scale that we did and beating such a strong list of pretenders to this crown acknowledges the concept behind the Nissan GT-R for being the ultimate supercar for anyone, anywhere, at any time.

"We are delighted that the MSN audience clearly recognises this and we thank them for the tribute."

The top ten results for MSN Cars car of the year 2009 were:

1 Nissan GT-R

2 Jaguar XF

3 Ferrari California

4 Volkswagen Scirocco

5 BMW X6

6 Audi Q5

7 Mitsubishi Evo X

8 Ford Fiesta

9 Vauxhall Insignia

10 Tesla Roadster