December 2012 Top 10 Best-Selling Cars In The United Kingdom

The 1-Series They Can Buy In
Cheshire Isn’t The Same As The
1-Series You Can Buy In Chicago

The rankings of the ten most frequently registered cars in the United Kingdom were quite a bit different in December 2012 than in the prior month.

The usual best seller, Ford’s Fiesta, was not the best-selling car for the second consecutive month, and in fact, dropped all the way to third spot as registrations dipped 8% compared to December of last year.

This enabled not only the Ford Focus, but Vauxhall’s Astra, to overtake the Fiesta in December. Ford reported a 30% increase in Focus registrations. Year-to-date, the growth achieved by the Focus, Astra, and Volkswagen Golf was well below the industry’s 5% improvement. Indeed, Golf sales dipped 2%.

GoodCarBadCar.net has also posted the 2012 year end best-selling cars list for the United Kingdom. Many of these cars remain, but the most British among them does not.

Rank	Best-Selling Car	December 2012	% Change	Year To Date	YTD % Change
#1	Ford Focus	5265	+ 30.1%	83,115	+ 1.6%
#2	Vauxhall Astra	5112	+ 5.3%	63,023	+ 0.7%
#3	Ford Fiesta	4977	– 8.0%	109,265	+ 13.7%
#4	Vauxhall Corsa	4510	– 14.2%	89,434	+ 15.0%
#5	BMW 1-Series	3196	n/a	34,488	n/a
#6	BMW 3-Series	3181	n/a	44,521	+ 4.8%
#7	Mini	3143	+ 16.1%	n/a	n/a
#8	Nissan Qashqai	2840	+ 10.1%	45,675	+ 15.9%
#9	Volkswagen Golf	2556	– 36.6%	62,021	– 2.1%
#10	Volkswagen Polo	2500	– 8.8%	41,901	– 8.9%