China August 2011: Buick Excelle & VW Passat shine

VW Passat

* See the Top 245 best-selling models by clicking on ‘Read more’ at end of post! *

Another upside down month for the Chinese models ranking… The Buick Excelle confirms its newly acquired year-to-date pole position by ranking #1 in August for the first time in 12 months with 23,700 sales and 163,501 units in 8 months. The new generation VW Passat is a huge hit in China, so much so that it is up to #2 this month with a very impressive 22,015 units sold, more than double its German sales figure.

Buick Excelle

The Toyota Corolla drops only two spots from its extraordinary month of July to #3 at 20,044 sales and the Chevrolet Cruze is now stable at the highest level at #4 and 19,910 units and is also now #4 year-to-date, passing the BYD F3. The Hyundai Elantra Yuedong also delivers a solid month at #5, while the VW Lavida is back from July’s hellish 87th spot to #6 and is still #2 year-to-date at 152,5210 sales.

A new brand is born: the Baojun 630 appears for the first time in the Chinese ranking.

Notice the Honda CR-V at an outstanding 8th place, the Audi A6L up 8 spots to #17 and the Kia K2 up a massive 37 ranks to #41 with 7,556 sales. A few high profile newcomers this month: the Peugeot 508 instantly becomes the best-selling Peugeot in China for its first month of sales at #72 with 4,544 units. Baojun, the low-cost brand from GM, places the 630 directly at #168 with 869 sales and the Brilliance H530 is at #162 and 1,077 units.

Previous month: see the China July 2011 Top 200 best-selling models here.

Full August 2011 Top 245 Ranking Table below.