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The decision was partly made by the votes of the 55,000 readers of six magazines and newspapers and by an esteemed group of Slovenia's finest motoring journalists. The award-winning car was the Mazda3. Second place went to the Renault Scenic, third place to the Volkswagen Touran, fourth to the Audi A3, and fifth place to the BMW Series 5. Interestingly this was the second year that a Mazda had won; last years winner was the Mazda6. It is all the more surprising given the fact that Slovenia's motoring journalists have never been very fond of Japanese cars. They often criticised their appearance arguing that they were inferior to their European counterparts, or that they were boring and imperceptible, but they did acknowledge their overall build quality and reliability. Then Japanese automakers suddenly adopted a new look that resembled the European one, retaining the quality and reliability, and now car magazines are full of praise for them. So Japanese cars have joined the list of objects of desire, a list that used to be populated by vehicles of German, French, Italian and Swedish origin.