Best V8 sales in five years

On the eve of the launch of Australia's most fuel-efficient car, the new Toyota Prius, Holden has revealed that our love affair with V8s is far from over.

Holden has released detailed figures for Commodore and Statesman that show sales of V8s last month were at their highest since the recent oil crisis.

In June, one in four Commodores and Statesmans sold was a V8. Last year, the average was one in five.

That is, of the 6570 Commodore sedans, wagons, utes and Statesman and Caprice models sold in June, 1682 were V8s.

Incredibly, Holden says it could have sold more V8s but it ran out of stock.

"Lower petrol prices were definitely a factor, but we also believe our new [Active Fuel Management] helped sales as well," said Holden's executive director of sales and marketing, Alan Batey. He said this was evidenced by the swing to V8s with automatic transmissions (AFM is only available on auto transmission), which accounted for the majority of sales.

June also saw the best sales month for Commodore so far this year, even though its tally of 4748 was beaten by Toyota's HiLux, with just eight extra sales (4756).

It was the third time the HiLux has led the monthly sales race. The previous two occasions were in April and October last year. The HiLux is still the only ute in Australian history to top the entire new vehicle market for a month.

However, the Commodore is still our biggest selling car when sales for the first six months of the year are taken into account.

With 21,587 sales to June, the Commodore tally is down 7.4 per cent on the same period last year but is still on track to become Australia's favourite car for the 14th year in a row.

The Commodore leads the HiLux and Mazda3 by a comfortable margin. Meanwhile the Ford Falcon has returned to the top 10 list, behind the fourth-placed Toyota Corolla, whose sales are down by 28 per cent.

Sales of market leader Toyota, in general, are down by 26 per cent. It is believed this has been caused by the 30 per cent reduction in rental car orders across the travel industry.

As reported elsewhere on the Carsales Network (more here), sales in June 2009 eclipsed the 100,000 mark for the first time in 12 months, even though sales were down by 3.5 per cent, or 3700 sales, on the same month last year.

June 2009 was the third strongest sales month for new-vehicle sales on record, says the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.

Top 10 models year to date

Holden Commodore 21,587
Toyota HiLux 19,113
Mazda3 18,196
Toyota Corolla 17,573
Ford Falcon 14,490
Toyota Yaris 10,098
Nissan Navara 9884
Hyundai i30 9904
Hyundai Getz 9526
Mitsubishi Lancer 8672
Source: FCAI

Some of the winners (% increase YTD) in a market that was down 16.1 per cent YTD
Ford Fiesta +12
Honda Accord Euro +22
Hyundai Tucson +48
Jaguar XF +50
Jeep Cherokee +108
Kia Cerato +21
Kia Sorento +8
Subaru Forester +9
Subaru Impreza +9
Source: FCAI

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