The Maruti Suzuki Swift has earned itself a place in the Indian automotive history books by becoming the first Indian Car Of The Year!

The ICOTY award has been instituted by all the prominent automotive magazines in the country, including Business Standard Motoring, and the jury comprised the seniormost motoring journalists in India.

Jagdish Khattar, managing director, Maruti Udyog [Get Quote], received the ICOTY 2006 award for the Swift from A K Bajoria, president, JK Tyre, at a function held in Mumbai early this week.

The ICOTY award is a sign that the Indian automotive market is now mature and is a critical part of the worldwide automotive industry. Important markets like Europe, North America, Japan and Australia have their own Car Of The Year awards. The ICOTY provides an impetus to carmakers to introduce contemporary and safe models in India.

Other than the Swift, contenders for ICOTY 2006 included the Ford Fiesta, Toyota Innova, Skoda Laura, Hyundai Sonata Embera and Tucson - essentially all-new cars launched in calendar year 2005.

Though the jury had evaluated all these cars during the course of the year, these contenders were assembled together for a final evaluation drive across varied terrain.

Then they were ranked on a 25-point scale, with a maximum of 10 points given to a single car - this points format is similar to that used for arriving at the European COTY. The car with the maximum points simply becomes the winner. And in this case, it was the Swift.

Congratulations, Maruti Suzuki, this is one for the history books!