UK Top 10 Models : 1965-69

Things were very different back in the late 60's in the UK. All the top 10 and in fact nearly all cars sold were built domestically. Green represents local brands and blue US owned. That said Hillman was taken over by Chrysler in 1967 so could be either colour and still be correct.

The BMC 1100

BMC: The Austin/Morris 1100/1300 range was top selling model in all but 1967, when the Ford Cortina was. The Mini was a classic in its time although through this period was losing sales slowly. The Farina range was mainly the Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge models that were replaced by the Austin 1800, which showed up on the chart for 1969. Finally the Minor model had been going since 1948 and was still selling well by the the mid 1960's.

Ford: The Cortina was 2nd but for 1967. The Ford Anglia made the list until 1968, when the even more popular Escort took over. The Corsair was an unusual in that is was similar to the Cortina in size. Finally the Capri sold well considering it was a coupé styled 2 door car.

Hillman: The Hunter (also known as the Arrow range for including badge engineered variants) was fine family car. It was supported by the Imp, a small, rear engined model.

Triumph: The small Herald is the only one to make the Top 10 for the brand. it offered something quite different and I always considered it a fun car to drive. A family friend had one and it's independent suspension amazed me, flying over small speed bumps like they weren't there. 6,340 were assembled in NZ I believe.

	Model	1969	1968	1967	1966	1965
	BMC 1100/1300	133,455	151,146	131,382	151,946	157,679
	Ford Cortina	116,185	137,873	165,300	127,037	116,985
	Ford Escort/Anglia	85,156	98,218	55,735	68,209	84,589
	Vauxhall Viva	75,354	101,067	100,220	59,731	58,884
	BMC Mini	68,330	86,190	82,436	91,624	104,477
	Hillman Hunter	65,165	76,375	79,376
	Vauxhall Victor	33,582	40,128	38,517	46,537	60,854
	Ford Capri	33,047
	BMC Farina/1800	29,005	30,284		48,077	52,503
	Hillman Imp	28,161	35,295	40,858	38,870	42,663
	Ford Corsair		31,014	35,993	38,412	44,463
	Morris Minor			36,250		44,905
	Triumph Herald				38,076	46,626
	Top 10	667,440	787,590	766,067	708,519	771,965
	% of Total	69.1	68.8	67.0	64.9	67.2
	Total	965,410	1,144,770	1,143,015	1,091,217	1,148,718

Data source: SMMT.

At the bottom of the chart, the top 10 sales are included for each year, along with the percentage of total sales they represented. About two thirds of all sales were made up by these few models, quite different from today.

Other years in the series:
70-74, 75-79, 80-84, 85-89, 90-94, 95-99, 00-04, 05-09, 10-14.