Voted online exclusively by the ACFO membership, the 2015 awards were revealed at a gala dinner at the St John’s Hotel, Solihull last night (18 November) and saw Ford take both the Small Van of the Year and Large Van of the Year titles in line with its dominance of the van categories over the 32-year history of the ACFO Awards.
The Transit scooped the Large Van of the Year title for the fifth consecutive year and the 19th time in the history of the awards.
Meanwhile the Ford Transit Connect returned to pole position to win the Small Van of the Year Award having been knocked out of the winner’s circle last year. It means the Transit Connect – with stablemate the Ford Transit Custom as the runner-up – was voted the nation’s favourite small fleet van for the 12th time.
ACFO chairman John Pryor said: “Ford calls the Transit the backbone of Britain and that is due in no small part to ACFO members who continually recognise the key attributes of the range of models carrying the name: whole life costs, build quality and fitness for purposes.”
In addition, BMW took both the Environmental Initiative of the Year and Green Vehicle of the Year with the plug-in i3 while Jaguar won the Fleet Car of the Year Award for the first time and the Volvo XC90 won the Fleet Safety Award Initiative.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) retained the Fleet Service Company of the Year Award title in 2015 after developing a range of online tools including: driver licence validation checks, V5C vehicle registration certificate (log book) access and a vehicle enquiry service.
