Best Selling Cars – Matt's blog

The VW Golf was the best-selling car in the world in 2000

* See the direct links to 17 Historical World posts by clicking on the title! *

Thanks to Florian and Interautonews I can now share with you the world’s best-selling models in much more detail for selected years during the 1997-2005 period. There’s even the Top 120 best-selling models in the world in 2000!

And a big surprise: while we were expecting the Toyota Corolla to fly over all other models all the way from 1974 to 2011, it’s not! The VW Golf in the most popular model in the world in 1979, the Opel Corsa is the best-selling car in the world in 1997 (the Corolla is #2) and the VW Golf is the world’s favourite in 2000 (the Corolla is…#10!). But the Toyota reclaims the pole position in 2005 up until today.

If you have any more detailed world models data please do get in touch! Blatant needs are for any year before 1980 and between 1981-89, so click away if you know more than I do!

See ‘Read more’ for the direct links to these 17 World posts.

The Toyota Corolla was the best-selling car in the world from as early as 1974

All World Historical posts:

World 1960-1974: VW Beetle conquers the planet

World 1974: Toyota Corolla takes command

World 1975-1978: Toyota Corolla in the lead

World 1979: VW Golf passes Toyota Corolla to claim top spot

World 1980: Toyota Corolla clear leader, Renault 5 and VW Golf follow

World 1981-1989: Toyota Corolla from strength to strength

World 1990-1991: Toyota Corolla closes in on the million

World 1992-1997: Toyota Corolla reinforces world domination

World 1998: Opel Corsa the best-selling car in the world

World 2000: VW Golf in pole position! See the Top 120 best-selling models here!

World 2005: Toyota Corolla reclaims leadership

World 2006-2008: Toyota Corolla should stay on top

World 2009: Toyota Corolla #1 with 900,000+ sales

World 2010: Toyota Corolla leader, Hilux #1 in 28 countries

World 2011: Corolla faithful to pole position, discover the Top 100 best-selling models!

A very nice map of the World’s best-selling cars by country…

World vehicle population tops 1 billion units

Source: Interautonews based on JD Power and AutoWorld data. Many thanks to Florian for the tip!