UK 1997: Ford Mondeo starts with a bang, Fiesta leads at year-end

Ford Mondeo

* See the Top 30 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to Florian *

In 1997, the Ford Fiesta stays on top for the second year in a row, but it didn’t look like it at the start of the year: boosted by its facelift, the Ford Mondeo was leading by a rather comfortable margin, with 6.8% share in January and 5.4% in February.

Ford Fiesta

However, the Mondeo finished the year 3rd behind the Ford Escort. The Vauxhall Vectra, Astra and Corsa follow, making the Top 6 identical to 1996. The Peugeot 306 progresses again and beats the foreign model annual volume record for the third year in a row at 66,888 sales, reaching a best-ever 7th place, the highest position a foreign model has reached at year-end in at least 40 years! In fact, Peugeot places 3 models in the Top 4 best-selling foreign cars with the 106 at #12 (+14%) and the 406 at #13 (+33%).

Peugeot 306

There are a few newcomers in the Top 30: the Citroen Saxo at #19, the Renault Megane landing at #22 and the Scenic at #24 for their first year of sales in the UK, the Ford Ka at #23 and the Volvo S/V40 at #30.

Full 1997 Top 30, January and February Top 10 Ranking Tables below.