Toyota and Lexus recently received a number of top accolades from the media, including a CAR Magazine Top 12 award and four Best Buy awards from TopCar.

In the current economic trend, it becomes more and more imperative to make the right vehicle choice when purchasing a vehicle and to this extent both CAR Magazine and TopCar annually brings out their coveted Best Buy Guides.

CAR Magazine’s annual Top 12 Best Buys has become synonymous with quality and insightfulness into the car buyer’s mind and over the past decade Toyota has always held its own on this prestigious list. This year saw the face-lifted Hilux being crowned the best double cab, while Lexus received the Green Award for introducing sporty hybrids.

The CAR winners were chosen by the combined editorial team of CAR magazine and its website offspring, CARtoday.com. Using the well-established “four Ps” voting criteria of package, price, performance and personality, the panel determines a winner in each of 12 categories that represent the major segments of the South African passenger vehicle market.

With over 1 500 vehicles available, making the right purchasing decision is becoming increasingly difficult , and the Top 12 programme is aimed at highlighting the best value-for-money buys in each of the categories.

TopCar’s Best Buy Guide is much more comprehensive and is broken down into twelve digestible segments with five cars in each segment. Real world factors such as price, warranties and service plans, after-sales service, consumer satisfaction surveys and residuals were taken into account when drawing up a list of vehicles for this ‘bang for your buck’ guide.

Toyota and Lexus were represented in all but four of the twelve categories, with the following vehicles taking top honours in their segments: