Toyota Nigeria Limited, TNL emerged the all round best at the just concluded 2014 Nigeria Auto Journalists awards (NAJA) as it carted four vital awards, including the prestigious Car of The Year award, SUV of The Year, Pickup of the year and Mini Van of The Year awards. Also, Elizade Motors, one of Toyota dealers won the workshop of the year.

The NAJ award which was held at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos was well attended by players in the auto industry who thumped up for the organisers for a well packaged event and transparency of the awards.

The Toyota Corolla won the car of the year award which was keenly contested by Nissan Almera and Honda Accord, while the Toyota Prado was voted the SUV of the year. Toyota Hiace was crowned Mini-van of the year while the Hilux rounded it up with the Pickup of the year award.

Coscharis Motors, distributors of Ford, BMW, Jaguar/Land Rover and Rolls-Royce also put up a spectacular performance at the event, winning in five categories including the most improved car brand of the year by Ford Motors, Luxury SUV of the year award by Range Rover Sports, Multiple dealership showroom of the year by its showroom at Lekki, as well as joint winner in the corporate social responsibility awards by Coscharis Ford. The company’s Group Managing Director, Mr. Josiah Samuel was also honoured with the Managing Director of the year award.

This year’s award nite however, was Mercedes Benz-best so far under Weststar Associates. Weststar is the authorise general distributors of Mecedes Benz, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge in Nigeria.

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class was honoured with the luxury car of the year award while it truck brand won the Truck-of-The Year award. Weststar Associates General Manager Mrs. Elizabeth Itegbe was also honoured with the Female Manager of The Year.

Stallion Group, the Nigerian auto giant also went home with some awards including the Most improved Auto Brand by Nissan, one of its brands, Single Brand showroom by Porsche Centre, and Multiple auto dealership of the year. Stallion represents more than eight strong auto brands in Nigeria including, Nissan, Porsche, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai, Asok Leyland Skoda and Audi.

Responding to the awards, the Group Managing Director of Stallion, Mr. Parvir Singh commended the initiatives of the Guild of Motoring Correspondents organisers of the Nigeria Auto Journalists Awards.

“Nissan particularly has done remarkably well since its inauguration 18 months ago with favourable growth indices and sales volumes”, he said.

Other winners at the NAJ awards are Sinotruk which won Chinese truck of the years, (Sinotruk is represented in Nigeria by Richbon Nigeria Limited).

Tata was honoured with Waste Disposal Truck Company of the year, while GAC and JAC both Chinese brands emerged new entrant of the year.

Kia Rio, which was recently assembled in Nigeria was rewarded with Budget car of the year. The Kia Rio beat the Hyundai i10 Grand and Mitsubish Attrage to emerge the winner. Though, bigger than its contenders with more features, the Kia Rio base model is priced from N2 million. Innoson Motors and PAN Ltd were joint winners of the automobile assembly plant of the year, while Globe Motors and Newsletters Ltd were honoured for their support to the development of Motoring journalism in Nigeria.