France 1-8 October 2014: VW Golf leads in market down 8%

VW Golf

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Harsh start of the month for new car sales in France with sales down 8% year-on-year during the first eight days of the month. Weekly rankings are always to be taken with a grain of salt as they are heavily influenced by promotions and specific manufacturers policies about front or back-loading their sales during the month – for example Renault backloads and ranks third so far but will finish the month #1 or, less likely, #2 behind Peugeot. Nevertheless we have a historical event happening before our eyes this week: in a very nationalistic market, the VW Golf manages to edge out the Peugeot 308 by 21 units for the overall pole position with 1.280 sales (+66% year-on-year) vs. 1.260 for the 308 (+69%). In BSCB records, the only other time a foreign vehicle took the lead of the weekly ranking in France was during the first week of January 2012 when the VW Polo topped the charts…

Dacia Duster sales are up 180% year-on-year in France this week.

This does not mean the Golf will finish the month in the lead at all, but it could deliver a Top 5 ranking which would ranking up there among the nameplate’s best performances ever. The Peugeot 208 is down 24% in third place above the Citroen C3 (-4%) and Renault Clio IV (+2%) while the Dacia Duster (+180%), Peugeot 2008 (+18%) and Dacia Sandero (+30%) all shine. Brand-wise, Peugeot (stable) is above Citroen (-1%) and Renault (-10%) for now while Dacia (+59% in 5th place) and Ford (+24%) are the only manufacturers to gain ground year-on-year this week.

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Previous month: France September 2014: Renault Twingo III up to 8th place

One year ago: France 1-7 October 2013: Citroen C4 Picasso and Toyota Yaris strong

Full 1-8 October 2014 Top 10 models and brands Ranking Tables below.