The Qoros 3 has been confirmed by the Euro NCAP as the best performing small family car in its crash test programme of 2013.

The Qoros 3 Sedan is the first car developed in China to be awarded five stars by Euro NCAP.

The first production car from Qoros, the new international car brand headquartered in China, scored highly in all four areas of the Euro NCAP tests and its overall score (88%) was the highest achieved by any vehicle tested during 2013 – placing it amongst the safest cars ever tested by Euro NCAP.

The accolade is noteworthy as some earlier Chinese developed cars have received poor crash safety scored.

Volker Steinwascher, vice-chairman of Qoros, said: "The Euro NCAP result demonstrates the high level of design, engineering and production quality that we have achieved with the Qoros 3 Sedan. Reaching these very challenging world-class standards – not just in safety, but in every attribute of the car – was an objective from the very beginning and it is very satisfying to gain recognition for our endeavours."

Michiel van Ratingen, Euro NCAP secretary general, commented: "The Qoros 3 Sedan has received the official 2013 best-in-class honour and is the best performer of all the Small Family cars subjected to Euro NCAP’s crash tests in 2013.

"We congratulate Qoros for having achieved the highest safety record with the Qoros 3 Sedan, which becomes the first car developed in China to achieve the highest five stars at Euro NCAP’s tough crash test programme."

The Qoros 3 Sedan scored the best result for Adult Occupant protection (95%) in Euro NCAP’s 2013 programme. The passenger safety cell proved to be extremely robust in front-end, side impact and pole impact collisions – minimising exposure of passengers to collision forces by diverting impact loads along predefined paths to dissipate their effect.