Matiz Chosen as One of the Top 3 World Car Brands

"Matiz is a small car of very advanced design which represents a foretaste of the forms and solutions of the next century." In Auto Motor Und Sport (the world's largest automobile publication), Daewoo's Matiz was chosen as one of the top three car brands from a survey conducted on consumers from 13 European countries. The German publication conducted the survey itself and ranked the Matiz in the top 3 along with Volkswagen's Lupo and Ford's Ka.

In this year's survey, 21 models (three models in seven different categories) were chosen as the winners, and of the 21 models only the Matiz was from an Asian manufacturer. None of the Japanese models were selected and Daewoo's Matiz even outranked Mercedes.

The Matiz was especially strong in Italy where it took top place. The mini car also ranked second in Portugal, and third in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. The significance of these rankings lies in the fact that the Matiz reached this position in only the last nine months of local sales in Europe since mid 1998.

Since sales began in Italy in June of 1998, the demand for the Matiz from local dealers has greatly surpassed the supply capacity. Up till the month of March of this year, a total of 74,000 Matiz were sold in Europe with 25,000 in Italy and 8,400 in Poland alone.

Matiz Taking Italy by Storm

Quattroruote magazine, an Italian automotive publication, asked their readers what cars they liked most, and the winner in the 'city car' category was the Matiz. Quattroruote has over 80,000 readers and this extensive survey was conducted on male readers between the age of 25 and 49. This group represents the majority of the people who actually purchase a car.

This year, 13 specialized magazines took part in the survey and thousands of reply cards arrived at the Quattroruote editor's desk. Besides showing what kind of cars people like, the survey has helped to analyze and understand what the trend of the car market is and what the tastes of the people are today.

In this year's survey, 82% of the participants were male and 74% were in the age between 25 and 49 with the geographical location of the participants being well distributed throughout the whole Italian country.

The most interesting result of this year's survey was shown in the city car category. Quattroruote writes: "Daewoo, a Korean car company, has been present in the Italian market for four years now. This company has had excellent success as confirmed by the sales data in 1998." The Matiz was selected as the "absolute winner among city cars."

The reason that the Matiz was chosen as the city car Italians like most is because "those who drive a Daewoo know it as good, think that it is reliable and, above all, very good value for money." The Matiz was followed by Fiat's Seicento and Volkswagen's Lupo and Smart.

The Matiz was also the winner in the small cars segment at "The World's Most Beautiful Automobile of 1998"awards, which were held earlier this year in Milan, Italy. Distin-guished designers, architects, photographers, and other artists were the judges in selecting the winners. New models, which entered the Italian market in 1998, were judged in seven car segments and the Matiz was selected as the most beautiful car in the small car segment. The basis for the judgement of the professionals was that the Matiz is "a small car of very advanced design which represents a foretaste of the forms and solutions of the next century."

Local press ran articles on the winner and Asa Press reported: "this prestigious prize has been given by an international jury of artists from all over the world, headed by Bruno Alfieri, editor of Le Grandi Automobili."

In relation to Daewoo, the article goes on to say, "the Matiz which made its debut in the Italian market last June, has clearly made an enormous assent of the market as shown by the numbers." Daewoo sold 25,000 Matiz models in Italy last year.

In another publication, Autodoc, the news of the Matiz winning the contest was also reported: "the small Daewoo has gained great appreciation from the public thanks to its body line that recalls the stylistic elements of an MPV and to the extremely reduced dimensions."

As shown in the two awards that the Matiz has received, Daewoo's cars are gaining favorable responses from the general public as well as from professionals.