Volkswagen has taken top honours at the prestigious International Engine of the Year Awards for 2009, with its 1.4-litre TSI Twincharger petrol engine winning this coveted award. The 11th annual International Engine of the Year Award ceremony took place at the Engine Expo 2009 in Stuttgart, Germany.

The turbocharged and supercharged engine also won the ‘1-litre to 1.4-litre’ category and was also voted the ‘Green Engine of the Year’, beating both Toyota and Honda’s new electric-hybrid powerplants. Eaton developed and supplies the supercharger for this engine.

This is the first time in VW's history that it has won this award and the engine, which is not available in India as yet, powers much of VW’s global model range including the Golf, Scirocco and Eos models.

According to Dean Slavnich, editor of Engine Technology International and co-chairman of the International Engine of the Year Awards, “The international judging panel is hugely impressed by this VW engine. It’s a masterstroke of downsizing technology.” BMW shared a third category win with PSA Peugeot Citroen for their 1.6-litre Turbo engine in the 1.4-litre to 1.8-litre category, developed by the two companies’ joint powertrain development venture.

The awards were judged by a panel of 65 motoring journalists from 32 countries, including Autocar Professional editor Hormazd Sorabjee. A variety of other manufacturers also received awards for engine excellence in a number of different categories.

The event, which is one of the annual highlights of the automotive industry calendar, saw a total of 12 awards given to those manufacturers who have been judged to have achieved excellence in their powertrain engineering.