Ford Taurus and Volvo XC60 have been awarded the International Car and Truck of the Year (ICTOY) at the 2009 LA Auto Show. It is a truly proud moment for Ford as both the awards have come to their kitty. The award is just a progression of the warm reception the vehicles had from the press and customers.

“This award is not centered on power and performance. It is about how a car reflects our personalities, lifestyles and self-image and how well the auto-maker achieves the goal through the design and marketing of the vehicle,” said Courtney Caldwell, ICOTY creator and executive producer. “Taurus is not just a car you need to get from point a to point B, it is a car you want to arrive in style,” stated Pei-Wen Hsu, Taurus marketing manager. He also added, “The new Taurus gives you a little blast of attitude and turns heads around every corner.”

Taking a deeper look – the 2010 Ford Taurus features an athletic, upscale design combined with world class technologies and excellent driving dynamics. Its available with technologies add convenience, safety and value for customers. It includes Blind Spot Information System (BLIS), Cross Traffic Alert, MyKey parental programmability, Voice-Activated Navigation and Ford SYNC.

This award is the 20th accolade of the XC60 since its launch in Europe in late 2008. The XC60 is the first vehicle to offer standard City Safety equipment. Using this exclusive technology the driver can avoid frontal collisions at low speed.

Volvo North America CEO Doug Speck said after receiving the prize , “This ties a very pretty bow around what has been a truly amazing year for Volvo. The XC60 has not only been recognized by the media, but it has been extremely well received by our customers.”

Both the vehicles have been a success in terms that the Taurus is outselling any insipid of its predecessor and the XC60 helped Volvo achieve 6 consecutive months of sales increases.