2003 Ipsum 240i Type S: 2003 Australia Best People Mover

I found this webpage sometime back but did not managed to blog it. I found it again today.

Avensis Verso (2 litre model) similar to Ipsum was Australian Best People Mover Year 2002 & 2003. After that, the newly introduced Odyssey took over and still at the reign.

It might be said that assessing the people movers in this year's awards was going to be somewhat of a no-brainer, given that there had been virtually no activity in this segment since last year.

Nevertheless, the nine judges applied the usual testing rigour to the three final contestants.

We climbed in them, around them, stacked them full of burly blokes, pulled the seats up and down, drove them on all sorts of terrain and generally re-checked the vehicles and our scores to see if we had missed anything old or new.

Despite little fundamental change to any of the contenders, the judges knew they had to have the discussion (and a little argument) all over again. But even with revised criteria for innovation, the results come up unchanged from 2002: another successive Best People Mover gong to Toyota's Avensis Verso GLX, ahead of Zafira and Odyssey.

As with the winners in most categories, it is consistency that does the trick for Avensis. It is easily shaded by the Zafira in a couple of Value For Money criteria but outpoints the Holden in most of the critically weighted Design and Function areas.

A few of the Toyota's people-mover competitors manage better overall scores in the 'On The Road' section (performance, ride, handling, braking and smoothness) but the Toyota scores at least threes and fours and, importantly, outscores Zafira.

Top 5

Toyota Avensis Verso GLX, Holden Zafira, Honda Odyssey 2.3 Auto, Mitsubishi Nimbus, Honda Odyssey 3.0 Auto