ADAC Admits Falsifying Vote for German Car Award

Germany's 18-million-member ADAC car club concedes its communications chief made up the numbers for this year's favorite-car award.

ADAC declared last week that the winning Volkswagen Golf garnered 34,299 votes. But the organization, which wields considerable political clout in Germany, has since admitted the car actually received one-tenth that number of ballots.

Suddeutsche Zeitung first reported the scandal late last week.

ADAC insists the Golf, Germany's best-selling model in 2013, won the highly coveted award anyway. But it says it is investigating whether previous vote tallies also were manipulated.

Michael Ramstetter, who was responsible for this year's faked numbers, has resigned. He also served as editor of the group's Motorwelt magazine, which claims a European readership of 15.9 million.