UK November 2015: VW down 20%, Vauxhall Mokka breaks into Top 5 in market back up

The Vauxhall Mokka is among the five most popular cars in the UK.

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

After ending a record series of 43 consecutive months of year-on-year gains in October, the UK market is immediately and reassuringly back into positive territory with November sales up 4% to 178.876, bringing the year-to-date total to a record 2.453.426 units. This month Ford (+13%) is under attack from Vauxhall (+26%) at 21.597 sales vs. 20.945 after the latter posted a particularly weak result in October.

Hit by the emissions scandal: Volkswagen is down 20% in the UK this month. 

But the big news is Volkswagen turning off: down a harsh 20% to 7.2% share vs. 8.5% so far in 2015 now that sales take into account vehicles ordered after its emission scandal broke on September 18, but also various stop-sales effective on diesel models affected. All other brands of the Volkswagen Group drop: Audi (-4%), Skoda (-11%), Seat (-24%) and even Porsche (-1%). UK consumers are however not shunning diesel engines outside of the VW Group with the market share for this fuel type stable at 51.2% vs. 45.9% for petrol.

Partly thanks to the Discovery Sport, Land Rover is among the Top 10 brands in the UK.

Volkswagen is now threatened by BMW for 4th place at 12.958 sales vs. 11.963, while Mercedes gains 13% to land in 6th place, overtaking Nissan (-18%). But the winner this month in the UK brands ranking is Land Rover, almost doubling its sales year-on-year (+94%) to historically break into the Top 10 for the first time in BSCB memory – and most probably ever – at #9 with 6.535 sales and 3.7%. The closer Land Rover came to a Top 10 ranking before was in March 2013 (#11). Notice also Dacia (+41%), Jaguar (+66%), Jeep (+121%), Smart (+442%), MG (+46%) and Ssangyong (+99%) all posting spectacular gains.

The Corsa (+50%) helps Vauxhall gain 26% at home this month.

In the models ranking, the Ford Fiesta holds onto the pole position for just 559 units at 7.826 (+2%) vs. 7.267 (+50%) for he Vauxhall Corsa while the Ford Focus (+1%) reclaims its segment lead off the VW Golf (-20%) at #3. The hero of the month is the Vauxhall Mokka: after missing out on 4th consecutive Top 10 ranking by just one unit in October, the star crossover breaks into the UK overall Top 5 for the very first time at #5 with 3.928 units, beating its previous ranking record (#6) established last December. The Vauxhall Insignia is up 11 ranks on last month to reach its best ranking since March at #8 and the Vauxhall Astra is back inside a Top 10 it left last month for the first time in over a decade.

Previous post: UK October 2015: Now with the Top 170 models (BSCB Exclusive)

Previous month: UK October 2015: First year-on-year decline in record 43 months

One year ago: UK November 2014: VW Golf #2, Mercedes C-Class in Top 10

Full November 2015 Top 10 models and Top 40 brands Ranking Tables below.