The Vauxhall Astra has been voted the winner of the European Car of the Year award for 2016 at a ceremony held on the eve of the Geneva Motor Show. The Astra scored a total of 309 points from the jury comprising 58 motoring journalists from 22 European countries, beating the runner-up, the Volvo XC90, by a narrow margin. The XC90 scored 294 points.

Accepting the award in Geneva, chairman of the management board Opel Group GmbH Dr Karl-Thomas Neumann said, "It's totally fantastic. You cannot imagine how happy I am to stand here. The competition was tough and you could see it. And our people, the Opel people, are extremely proud.

"We have created the 11th generation of our compact car from a white piece of paper. It is the fifth COTY award Opel has won and the third in the past eight years. We will keep upsetting the upper class and keep exceeding our customer's needs."

The other finalists for the award were the Audi A4 (189 points), BMW 7-series (143 points), Jaguar XE (163 points), Mazda MX-5 (202 points) and Skoda Superb (147 points).