Live via webcast, Motor Trend announced the winner of its annual Car of the Year award yesterday afternoon. Included in the list of contenders are both Taurus and Mustang. But it was Ford’s 2010 Fusion Sport that took home the coveted Golden Calipers.

The extensively reworked 2010 Fusion features a new exterior and interior design and other new options that include the Sync entertainment system and a blind-spot warning system. Ford thought well of the buyers’ variety of needs as they come up with these options: a four-cylinder model, two strong V6 options and a full-hybrid variant. It gets34 mpg on highway with the four-cylinder engine and six-speed automatic transmission. The gas-electric hybrid version gets 41 mpg in the city.

Though the Ford Fusion has been named Motor Trend Car of the Year, it still lags behind Toyota Camry and Honda Accord as the best selling cars in the US.