VFACTS: The five best-selling cars of 2024

New Year’s Eve celebrations might be over, but many car brands – Toyota, Ford, Isuzu and Mitsubishi – will be popping yet more champagne corks, exulting in a top five finish in the crucial new car sales race.

It’s no surprise to see the top five selling new vehicles of 2024 comprised just two car types – ute and mid-size SUV – because both categories have dominated the market for almost two decades.

Without further ado, here are 2024’s best-selling vehicles.

The Ford Ranger is Australia’s best-selling new car for the second year running after dethroning the Toyota Hilux in 2023.

The Australian-developed pick-up truck ended the year almost 10,000 sales ahead of its arch-rival thanks to a number of special editions to keep interest running hot, including the off-road-focused Tremor.

Some savvy planning by Ford (and the rental of a huge cargo ship in 2023) saw the Blue Oval keep pace with demand and, together with a new plug-in hybrid Ranger Stormtrak arriving in the second half of 2025, it’s likely the Ranger will be at the top of the table for the foreseeable future.

Australia’s favourite mid-sized SUV usurped its light commercial stablemate to take silver in 2024, owing to vastly improved supply that saw wait times for the Toyota RAV4 quelled down to next to nothing.

With an order list as long as the Nullarbor Highway, it was no great surprise to see the RAV4 surging up the sales charts and even threaten the best-selling Ranger.

What’s more, there’s every chance it could depose the Ford Ranger as Australia’s top-selling vehicle in the next few years with a sleek new-generation RAV4 on the way.

Stay tuned for more news on the next-generation of Australia’s most popular hybrid vehicle.

Has the Australian love-affair with the Toyota Hilux turned sour? Not really. Given it still sold over 53,000 units and was the third-best-selling vehicle here in 2024, the Hilux remains a popular go-to option for ute buyers across the nation.

Australia’s best-selling vehicle for seven consecutive years (2016-2022), the Hilux’s podium finish is impressive given it’s one of the oldest utes on the market – it certainly looks and feels it compared to the growing number of younger rivals – and faced some supply issues throughout the year.

Chief among those newer rivals is the BYD Shark 6 which could well be on this list in 12 months’ time, if not in the top three!

A new Hilux ute is in development but is unlikely to arrive until 2026 and even then, could soldier on with the same 2.8 turbo-diesel engine and platform as the current model.

Another year, another ute finishes in the top five and the Isuzu D-Max continues its run as one of the most dependable pick-ups money can buy.

Despite only selling two vehicles Down Under (this D-Max ute and the MU-X SUV), Isuzu Ute Australia finished the year as the eighth-most popular car brand in Oz with almost 50,000 sales in total. Not a bad strike rate, that.

The brand was feeling nervous in early 2024 as the federal government’s now-implemented NVES regulations could have killed the importer.

But after the government watered-down the NVES laws it appears as though Isuzu won’t bear the brunt of regulations designed to penalise polluting cars and reward cleaner ones.

It may have just snuck into the top five best-seller ahead of the Ford Everest (with 26,494 sales) but the Mitsubishi Outlander well and truly deserves its place in this company.

Shooting to prominence with bold styling, sharp pricing, a flexible interior, the option of a plug-in hybrid EV powertrain and a polished drive, the Outlander resonated with customers and is expected to maintain its sales momentum into 2025.

The Outlander also employed a trick similar to that of the Toyota RAV4 – it outsold its ute compatriot, the Triton.

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