UK Car Sales By Brand : 1975-79

The Chrysler Alpine.   

Local: In this period, Ford took over from BL and Ford has been number one in the UK ever since. Both the Cortina and Escort were one and two throughout this period.

The market was growing but BL was going backwards. Austin/Morris had dropped slightly, the Mini, Marina and Allegro were the best sellers in the UK.  Rover had about doubled from 74-79 thanks to the SD1 (13th in 1978), while Triumph was all but finished with the aging Toledo/1500/Dolomite range.

Chrysler Europe combined Hillman and Simca as one brand in 1977 with some quite good cars. The Avenger and Hunter fell out of the top 10 in the early part of this period while the Alpine got to 11th place in 1977. Vauxhall had the locally made Chevette and imported Cavalier doing well as strong top 10 models.

Imports: Nissan has been a long time favourite in the UK, the Sunny model making 10th spot twice in this five year period. Recently on a car forum in the Netherlands, someone asked why Nissan was so strong in the UK. An answer came that patriotism was the reason because they are made in the UK, but they weren't made there to well into the 1980's.

Premium brands were hardly to be seen back in those times, with mainstream vehicle predominating. Volvo was the best selling of them back then.

75	76	77	78	79	Make	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979
2	2	1	1	1	Ford	259,124	324,659	340,319	392,366	485,559
1	1	2	2	2	BLMC	356,429	342,278	312,680	360,981	326,547
4	4	5	4	3	Chrysler	78,515	72,185	79,730	112,562	119,433
3	3	3	3	4	Vauxhall	87,949	114,954	120,600	130,993	112,398
5	5	4	5	5	Nissan	64,011	68,853	82,133	101,735	102,395
6	6	7	7	6	Renault	56,650	56,855	55,862	69,627	93,468
7	7	6	6	7	Fiat	38,392	48,595	66,015	72,192	70,626
8	8	8	8	8	Volkswagen	32,570	31,405	32,714	47,055	60,061
14	12	11	10	9	Peugeot	14,811	18,020	22,632	31,345	37,980
11	9	12	11	10	Volvo	17,010	22,217	21,772	29,868	36,583
9	11	10	9	11	Citroen	22,049	21,001	23,974	31,957	34,015
10	10	9	12	12	Toyota	20,270	22,094	24,157	28,334	32,220
17	13	13	13	13	Opel	10,307	15,649	16,248	22,199	27,216
24	21	17	15	14	Lada	5,713	8,541	12,286	17,974	22,270
18	14	14	14	15	Honda	10,110	13,328	14,430	19,480	17,849
16	17	16	19	16	Mazda	10,549	10,434	12,802	12,810	17,770
13	15	15	16	17	Audi-NSU	15,629	12,492	13,244	16,167	16,227
22	20	22	22	18	BMW	7,233	8,621	8,481	10,506	14,058
20	22	21	17	19	Alfa Romeo	8,287	7,966	8,637	13,061	13,638
26	24	24	21	20	Mitsubishi	2,983	6,701	6,817	10,612	10,696
19	19	18	23	21	Skoda	9,353	8,952	9,447	9,890	10,243
21	23	25	25	22	Saab	7,380	6,908	4,845	6,407	8,976
		20	20	23	Lancia		see Fiat	9,323	11,764	8,951
15	18	19	18	24	Jaguar	12,258	10,401	9,387	12,812	8,035
25	25	23	24	25	Mercedes	5,530	5,825	6,981	6,935	7,914
28	28	27	26	26	FSO	2,023	1,855	1,501	3,605	6,530
		31	28	27	Subaru			72	1,514	3,443
27	27	28	27	28	Land Rover	2,186	1,881	1,482	1,954	2,402
31	29	29	30	29	RR/Bentley	1,354	1,438	1,215	1,324	1,347
				30	Porsche					918
30	26	26	29	31	Reliant	1,498	2,602	2,262	1,453	818
34	31	30	31	32	Lotus	383	544	432	674	697
				33	Suzuki					475
		33	32	34	AMC			7	352	429
29	32	33	34		Wartburg	1,642	338	7
12	16				Simca	16,921	10,720	see Chrys
23	30	33			DAF	6,358	1,013	7
32	33				Moskvitch	1,260	314
33	34				Jensen	429	224
					Others	9,019	8,229	1,024	1,433	4,088
					Total	1,196,185	1,288,092	1,323,525	1,591,941	1,716,275

Data source: SMMT.