Toyota finally backs a winner

Official 2013 sales figures due on Monday are expected to confirm that Toyota’s Corolla has finally overthrown the Mazda3 as Australia’s top-selling vehicle.

According to preliminary VFACTS numbers obtained by motoring.com.au, the Corolla last year became the first Toyota to top Australia’s new-vehicle sales charts.

This is despite the fact the Japanese brand will post its 11th consecutive year – and 17th in total -- of Australian market leadership in 2013, when another all-time industry sales record was set, and its ninth year of 200,000-plus sales in the past decade.

More than 1.14 million new vehicles were sold in Australia last year, easily eclipsing 2012’s record of 1,112,032 sales and making it the fourth successive year of million-plus sales, as well as the sixth time since 2007.

While Toyota almost doubled the sales of its nearest rival Holden with around 215,000 sales, the Corolla is believed to have notched up almost 43,500 sales in 2013 – the first full year of sales for Toyota latest small hatchback.

A redesigned Corolla sedan will further bolster the top-selling model’s showroom success when it goes on sale next month – three weeks after the all-new Mazda3 hatch and sedan arrive late this month.

Sales of the five-year-old existing Mazda3 -- Australia’s favourite new car for the past two years, after ending the Holden Commodore’s 15-year winning streak in 2011 – slipped by 4.5 per cent to about 42,000 in December, while Corolla sales lifted about 12 per cent.

Holden sales are understood to have continued their 20-year slide last year despite the mid-year launch of the latest VF Commodore, which is believed to have slipped to fifth place overall behind the Hyundai i30.

The latest brand to desert Australian manufacturing remained the nation’s second best selling marque last year with about 110,000 sales, narrowly ahead of Mazda, which sold more than 100,000 vehicles, and Hyundai, which also eclipsed its all-time annual sales record (91,537, in 2012) last month.

The Corolla was just one of six segment winners for Toyota last year alongside the Yaris, the locally-made Camry (which has now been Australia's top-selling mid-size model for 20 years) and the HiLux ute, which outsold the Mazda3 in a number of months over the past three years but has never claimed the top spot for a full year.

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