UK: 1965-2010 Detailed Historical Data now available!

The Ford Cortina was #1 in England for the first time in 1967

* 29 articles have been revised – click on the title for the direct links *

Thanks to data shared by Florian I can now give you much more detail on the UK market since 1985, with at least a Top 15 from 1985 onwards, a Top 30 from 1995 and a Top 100 for 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994 and 2004 up until now! This is very rare data folks, as it is traditionally very difficult to get anything beyond a Top 10 for the English car market… Plus from 2004 onwards every Monthly Top 10 is available, that’s 95 consecutive months!

The Ford Fiesta was #1 in the UK in 1990, 1991, from 1996 to 1998, 2009 and 2010.

And here’s an interesting stat for you: for the last 40 consecutive years, a Ford model has held the pole position in the UK! After the Austin 1100-1300 definitely relinquished the throne in 1971, it has always been a Ford atop English sales: the Cortina (#1 for 10 years), Escort (12 years), Fiesta (7 years) and Focus (10 consecutive years).

The Peugeot 205 was one of the best-selling foreign models in the UK from 1985 to 1993

Over the period just updated (1985-2010), the main event has been the increasing success of foreign models, with more and more each year breaking into the Top 20. In the 17 years between the 39,188 units sold by the Peugeot 205 in 1986 and the 101,019 sales of the Peugeot 206 in 2002, the foreign model annual volume record was beaten 11 times!

The Datsun Cherry ranked #8 in the UK in 1981

Interestingly, the foreign model charge was initially led by Datsun, which placed the Cherry at #8 in 1978, a foreign model ranking record that would only be beaten nearly 20 years later in 1997 by the Peugeot 306. The British models ranking used to be filled with plenty of mass English brands: in 1975 the Top 10 models featured no less than 7 of them: Ford, Mini, Morris, Austin, Vauxhall, Hillman and Leyland! How times have changed…

See the direct links to these 29 revised posts below.