New car sales in first 10 days down on last year

New car sales for the first 10 days of the year show that 6,690 cars were registered with the new 131 registration.

This is usually one of the busiest periods of the year for new cars as pre-orders are delivered to customers. With the change in the registration system on January 1st, the motor trade hopes to shift some of the emphasis towards the second registration period in July. Ten-day figures for January are down significantly on the same period last year, when 8,530 cars were registered. Toyota tops the market so far with a 13 per cent share, and its Avensis family car is the best-selling model, ahead of the Volkswagen Golf. Volkswagen finished last year as the best-selling brand here but has slipped to fourth place in the early registrations.

Korean firm Hyundai is a surprising success story, taking second place at the start of the month, while Ford retains the third-place spot it held at the end of last year.