A HYBRID car has won Australia's most coveted motoring prize, the Wheels magazine Car of the Year Award.

The Honda CR-Z sports car took the gong from five other finalists including the latest Ford Focus, the Audi A6, the Skoda Yeti and the Volkswagen Scirocco.

The magazine said the Honda was expertly engineered, impressively efficient and had strong safety credentials.

It said the car also set new benchmarks for hybrids, which run on a combination of petrol and electric power.

"It's fun to drive and if this is the future it's something worth looking forward to," Wheels editor Bill Thomas said.

"And, as our judging panel noted, the CR-Z takes the car where it should be going, smaller, lighter, more efficient, more enjoyable."

Wheels said there was nothing quite like the CR-Z on the Australian market.

The range starts at $34,990 for the Sport manual. The Sport CVT sells for $37,290 and the CVT Luxury is $40,790.
"Having set out to create a fun-to-drive coupe with good efficiency, Honda has bullseyed its target," Mr Thomas said.

The Wheels award has been presented since 1963 and this year involved 3,400km of driving at the Lang Lang Proving Ground, 4000km of road driving and a week of final deliberations from the eight judges.

Source: Honda's CR-Z wins Wheels Car of the Year | The Courier-Mail