Scots new car sales up 8.68% 07 | 08 | 2014
SCOTTISH CAR DEALERSHIPS enjoyed a more successful July than had been expected. A total of 14,403 new cars were registered in Scotland last month, an increase of 1150, or 8.68%, compared to the same month in 2013.
And Scotland again outperformed the rest of the UK, which saw an increase of 6.58% with 172,907 units registered against 162,228 for July last year.
Ford backed its sponsorship of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games up by topping the Scottish sales charts for the first seven months of the year.
The Blue Oval-badged car manufacturer has sold 16,132 units — up 792 on the same period last year — and leads Vauxhall (16,064), VW (10,043), Audi (7361) and Nissan (6900). The top 10 is rounded out by Renault, BMW, Peugeot, Kia and Fiat.
And while the Vauxhall Corsa (752) was the bestselling model last month, edging out the Ford Fiesta by 46 units, with the Ford Focus third, it's the Fiesta which, so far, tops the sales charts over the opening seven months.
While Ford dealers have sold 6803 Fiestas, up 171 on last year, the Corsa (6089) sits in second place, ahead of the Focus (4060), Renault Clio (3302), and Vauxhall Astra (3255).
Related: David Bogie powers Ford to Speyside win
The top 10 models so far in Scotland this year are completed by the Fiat 500 (3014), Nissan Qashqai (2932), VW Golf (2816), VW Polo (2567) and Vauxhall Mokka (2255).
And while Strathclyde accounted for the majority of new car registrations last month with 7190 sales (up 11.28% on 2013), the largest percentage increase compared with July 2013 was achieved by Dumfries & Galloway which leapt by 16.96% from 283 to 331 units.
Over the penning seven months of 2014, Strathclyde again leads the way with 64,280 sales (up 8.65% on '13), with Tayside enjoying the biggest boom, up 14.10% from 8424 to 9612 units.
To date this year, a total of 128,756 new cars have been registered in Scotland, an increase of 9.32% over the 117,781 over the opening seven months of 2013.
“We are very pleased to see an increase of this size in July," Douglas Robertson, chief executive of the SMTA, said.
"Our feeling was that the market was starting to stabilise and we had anticipated no more than a 5% increase this month. So we are obviously very pleased to have exceeded this and we remain close to 10% up for the first seven months of the year.
“Looking ahead it is possible that sales could reach 220,000 by the end of the year. This would be 7.5% ahead of 2013 and a record for new car sales in Scotland bearing in mind we are currently close to 10% ahead, this might just happen.”
Related: Vauxhall to 'green light' Extreme
Keep up-to-date with all the latest news by following us on twitter.com/Scotcars
Jim McGill