The Ford Fiesta continued its dominance at the top of the UK new car registrations chart as the domestic market started 2016 with its best January performance in 11 years.
New car registrations increased by 2.9% last month compared with the same month in 2015, with a total of 168,678 cars registered during the month. That’s the highest total for January since 2005, when 181,474 cars were registered.
A total of 8353 new Fiestas were registered, eclipsing the second-placed Nissan Qashqai by 3514 units.
The market growth was fuelled by an increase in registrations of private cars, which enjoyed an 8.2% year-on-year rise. The total of 73,061 was the highest number of new cars registered to private buyers in January for 12 years.
Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said: “January’s solid performance puts the new car sector in a good position to start the year. Providing consumer confidence remains strong, we expect a more stable 12 months ahead, broadly similar to 2015 which was, of course, a record year.”
Alternatively fuelled vehicles continued to follow the recent trend of growing in popularity, with registrations up by 32.1% compared with January 2015. Hybrids and EVs commanded 3.6% of the total new car market, an increase of 0.8% over this time last year.
Diesel remained the most popular fuel type among buyers, but only by the slenderest of margins. A total of 82,311 oil burners were registered during the month, compared with 81,292 petrol-powered cars.
New car registrations for January 2016
1 Ford Fiesta 8353 units
2 Nissan Qashqai 4839
3 Vauxhall Corsa 4803
4 Ford Focus 4285
5 VW Volkswagen Golf 3813
6 Nissan Juke 3446
7 VW Volkswagen Polo 3298
8 Audi A3 3227
9 Vauxhall Astra 3185
10 Mercedes C-Class 3022
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Fiesta, in it's 9th year and still a great buy
Fiesta economical in petrol form, nit very
If you care to look at Wharcar real mpg figures the Fiesta in 1.25 litre 82 hp guise only does 34 mpg compared to the 1.6 diesel giving 57mpg. They have no figures for the 1 litre 3 cylinder engine in the Fiesta but in the Focus it only gives 27 mpg.
Had the 3 cyl in both Focus and Fiesta
Needs have changed and I have a Fiesta ZetecS in the 140PS version. I drive it harder but it's currently at 39.7.
Just my 0.02
xxxx wrote: Just goes to show
I had one on hire a while ago for a few days and loved it so much I traded in my BMW for one. The BMW wasn't getting used that much anyway so it made sense . It's great fun to drive (much more so that my F31 320d) and the 1.0 ecoboost engine is superb. It has been 100% reliable and is well built. As for the mpg mentioned by somebody else, I get an easy 38mpg around town (not helped by the addictive nature of the engine which loves to be revved) and 50 plus mpg on a run.
No wonder Ford don't seem in