Brazil January 2015: Fiat Palio and Chevy Onix fight for pole position, VW Gol down to lowest ranking in 32 years

The Chevrolet Onix has now outsold the VW Gol during 4 of the past 5 months.

* See the Top 20 best-selling brands and Top 130 models by clicking on the title *

After gaining 5% year-on-year in December, new car sales in Brazil are back into ugly, negative territory in January at -19% to just 243,904 registrations. Fresh off celebrating its first ever annual win in the models ranking, the Fiat Palio tops the January 2014 sales charts thanks to 14,432 sales, with the Chevrolet Onix hot on its tracks at 13,462 deliveries. Now cleansing from December sales artificially boosted by heavy discounts in a bid to keep its annual crown, the VW Gol plummets down to a devastating 8th place, the nameplate’s lowest monthly Brazilian ranking in 32 years…

Audi sales are up 21% in a market down 19%…

Brand-wise, Fiat slips down 21% but remains on top with 49,675 sales and 20.4% market share (vs. 20.7% at home in Italy), Chevrolet resists well at -13% to 46,879 units and 19.2%, almost two percentage points above its FY2014 level, while Volkswagen sinks down 29% to 39,462 sales and 16.2% share. Ford is down 15% to crack the 10% share mark, Hyundai is down just 4%, Toyota down 3%, Honda down 8% and Nissan down 5%. Citroen (-43%) and Peugeot (-44%) are the worst-off in the Top 20, and in the premium race, BMW takes the advantage over Mercedes thanks to sales down just 4% to 1,295 vs. -15% and 1,185 but Audi could well set everyone straight by the time 2015 comes to an end: it is up an incredible 21% to 1,087 sales this month.

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Full January 2015 Top 20 brands and Top 130 models below.