The Opel Zafira has won the prestigious Golden Steering Wheel Award for the Best Compact Van in 2005.

The award is voted for by the eleven million readers of the German weekly Bild am Sonntag. In this year’s compact van category, readers had the choice of voting for one of five vehicles produced by different manufacturers, with the Opel Zafira winning the contest.

In its review of this year’s award, now in its 30th year, Bild am Sonntag described the compact van class as “perhaps the most densely packed, competitive starter field” because it is not “handling and acceleration, but rather customer approval, which is the most important factor in this case.”

This was the second time that the Opel Zafira has won the Golden Steering Wheel Award.

The original Zafira, in fact, also came first in the vote when it was first launched in 1999.

The new Zafira, while still incorporating the unique Flex7 seating system by which the vehicle can be transformed from a seven seat people carrier into a single seat van, also features new technological developments such as the IDSPlus chassis with electronic continuous damping control (CDC), AFL bi-xenon headlamps with dynamic curve light, a diesel particulate filter as standard, trailer stability programme, the open and start keyless entry system and hill start assist (HSA).

Mr Edmund Gatt Baldacchino, managing director of Opel agents in Malta United Automobile Ltd said: “Winning the Golden Steering Wheel Award is important for Opel because it shows that the people who really matter, the customers, have a high regard for our vehicles.

“The fact that the readers of Bild am Sonntag have awarded this prize to the Zafira for the second time, is an impressive achievement which further highlights the quality of Opel vehicles.”