Car club’s credibility left in tatters after award vote rigged

Europe’s largest and most influential car club said revelations it had falsified results of its annual car award struck at the core of its credibility as critics raised questions about its car safety tests.

Volkswagen said it was considering giving back the award.

ADAC communications director Michael Ramstetter resigned after conceding he manipulated the results of the club’s coveted “Yellow Angel” award for Germany’s favourite car, which was won last week by the VW Golf.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us to repair the tarnished reputation,” said ADAC managing director Karl Obermair, who called Mr Ramstetter’s actions “an inexcusable mistake”.

“We’re very sorry,” added Mr Obermair. “This strikes at the very core of our existence. Our goal is to restore our credibility.”

ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) has over 18 million members. Its Yellow Angel award can give a fillip to sales in the domestic market.

ADAC conceded Mr Ramstetter, editor of ADAC’s popular ADAC Motorwelt magazine that has 18m readers, massively inflated the results of votes, saying 34,299 motorists had voted for the Golf when it had only been 3,409 votes.

ADAC, whose car test reports are followed closely in the country, said the order of the results was not tampered with — only the total number of votes.

But that caveat did little to calm the storm of protest in Germany over the vote-rigging.

Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, a car expert at the University of Duisburg-Essen, said ADAC’s reports and rankings need to be reexamined.

“The car breakdown statistics and tunnel safety reports need to be re-examined. If there are lies told about the ‘Yellow Angel’, other areas can’t be ruled out.”

— Reuters