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VW Golf (Temporarily) Replaces Ford Fiesta As Best-Selling Car in Britain

We take for granted the fact that the Fiesta is the best-selling car in the UK; so does Ford. But its crown has been stolen by the Volkswagen Golf.
Ford Fiesta 5 photos
Photo: Ford
Best Selling Cars in Britain for 2017Best Selling Cars in Britain for 2017Best Selling Cars in Britain for 2017Best Selling Cars in Britain for 2017
Fiestas have been the most popular new cars since 2014. However, even before that, they were just trading places with the Ford Focus. However, numbers released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show that only 8,601 examples of the supermini were shifted in June, compared to 8,808 units for the Golf.

Could this be a repeat of the fakery VW dealers pulled in France or is the legitimate new king? We believe the Fiesta will return to being No.1 soon. Why? Well, the Golf just got some very popular updates, but the all-new Fiesta will arrive in dealerships towards the end of July.

What's more, the results for the year to date are crushing. During the first six months of 2017, Ford has 59,380 Fiesta deliveries and 40,045 Focus deliveries, while Volkswagen tallied only 36,703 sales. Perhaps more impressive is the continued rise in popularity of the Qashqai, which was the 4th best seller, followed by the Corsa and Astra.

Another interesting surprise is that the MINI hatchback is the 9th most popular car this year, after the Polo. There's no BMW on the list, but the C-Class and A-Class made the Top 10. It seems that before the VED road tax system was introduced, people took advantage of the previous structure, wanting posh or premium cars. Can you imagine that there were almost as many C-Class Mercs bought as Astras?

The market as a whole shrank by 4.8 percent last month. With a total of 1,401,811 new cars added to its roads, Britain's car business contracted 1.3% so far in 2017.

The Dieselgate scandal and continued low prices of fuel have cut a 14.7 percent chunk of the diesel market in June. Meanwhile, sales of hybrids, EVs and PHEVs have surged 29% to 10,721 units or 4.4 of the total market, according to the SMMT. However, that's still nowhere near what's happening in Norway, where just last month, 42 percent of all new cars sold were electric.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
Mihnea Radu profile photo

Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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