UK February 2015: VW Golf doubles sales to shoot up to 2nd place

Only the Ford Fiesta outsells the VW Golf in the UK this month.

* See the Top 10 best-selling models and Top 40 brands by clicking on the title *

SMMT figures show the UK new car market up year-on-year for the 36th consecutive month (3 years exactly) at +12% to 76,058 registrations in February, a traditionally slow month ahead of the number plate change in March. This stretch of year-on-year gains is by far the longest the UK market has ever experienced and has been ongoing without interruption since March 2012. The next-longest year-on-year gains stretch is 26 months from May 1987 to June 1989. Slightly worryingly though, fleet sales drove this increase with registrations up 20% while the private market saw an increase of just 3%.

The Nissan Qashqai is up 71% year-on-year in the UK in February.

Even though it frankly underperforms the market at +2%, Vauxhall (12.4% share) is getting dangerously close to Ford (12.8%) whose sales drop 1% year-on-year. Volkswagen (+39%) and BMW (+68%) are the winners of the month in 3rd and 4th place respectively, with other great performers including Mercedes (+19%), Nissan (+19%), Dacia (+20%), Peugeot (+20%), Toyota (+23%), Seat (+26%), Renault (+67%), Mini (+79%), Jeep (+165%), Maserati (+176%) and Mitsubishi (+178%).

Mercedes C-Class sales are up 37% on February 2014

The Ford Fiesta dominates the models ranking once again despite sales down 7% year-on-year to 4,096 units. In 2nd place with sales up a bumper 95% on February 2014 is the VW Golf, achieving this ranking in the UK for the 2nd time in the past 4 months. The next 3 nameplates fall heavily: the Vauxhall Corsa (-10%), Astra (-11%) and Ford Focus (-21%) while the Nissan Qashqai (+71%), Vauxhall Insignia (+54%), Mercedes C-Class (+37%), Audi A3 (+40%) and Fiat 500 (+51%) round out the Top 10 and gain very significant ground compared to their level of a year ago.

Previous UK post: UK 1st Half 2015: Now with Top 350 All-models (BSCB Exclusive)

Previous month: UK January 2015: Nissan Qashqai up to best-ever 4th place

One year ago: UK February 2014: Mercedes C-Class up to #7

Full February 2015 Top 10 models below.