General Motors recently swept the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards in Detroit, Michigan with their Corvette Stingray and Chevrolet Silverado, taking top honors for the 2014 year. The double-win for GM was the first time a company has produced the winning vehicles for both categories.

The win in the truck/utility category this year won General Motors their fourth award for one of their trucks. It was the second time the Chevy Silverado won the award, which also claimed the victory in 2007.

The Silverado 1500 HD, worth around $50,000, won the competition with 219 points; it was followed by the Jeep Cherokee who had 174 points, and the Acura MDX (97 points).

The system for choosing a winner is based on factors such as innovation, design, safety, handling, driver satisfaction, and value of the vehicle. Points are given to each contender by a panel of 49 judges, made up of automotive experts and journalists from the U.S. and Canada. The judges this year hailed from companies and media outlets such as Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, Kelley Blue Book, Playboy, Popular Mechanics and Automotive Engineering International.

The NACOTY awards is currently in its 21st year, naming cars and trucks manufactured in North America, Japan, or Europe with either the Car or Truck/Utility Vehicle of the Year. Domestic vehicles have won 14 times, followed by Japanese-produced automobiles, which have won four times. The only requirements for consideration are that the vehicle must be brand new to the market or considerably different in its design.

The General Motors-produced Corvette Stingray won in the car category at the awards this year, being given an overall score of 211 points. The Stingray was followed closely by the Mazda 3, which had 185 points, and the Cadillac CTS with 94 points.

The global head of Chevrolet, Alan Batey, said of the company’s double win, “Chevrolet is in the midst of the most aggressive product transformation in the brand’s more than 100-year history. It is a distinct honor for the entire Chevrolet team to have both the Corvette and Silverado recognized with the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year awards.”

The Chevy Silverado won this year partly because of its innovative design, which boasts a 355-horsepower 5.3-liter EcoTec3 V-8, which gives the pickup the ability to automatically shift to operating on 4 cylinders in order to conserve fuel with its cylinder deactivation technology. The fuel economy of the Silverado is the best of any V-8 on the market, getting an EPA-estimated 23 mpg on the highway.

Main image courtesy @chevrolet via Twitter.