The Top 318 Best Selling Cars in Europe (Hint: The Corolla is Nowhere to Be Seen)

Matt Gasnier
by Matt Gasnier

In the last couple of weeks we have traveled to Georgia (the country, not the state,) Myanmar, Bolivia and the entire world! The success of our exploration of the Top 100 best-selling models in the world last week made me think you might be interested in a similar type of article about Europe…

However, if the whole of Europe is too much for you to handle today, that’s fine because I have sales info for 160 countries for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. So don’t be shy and click away!

Back to your Grand Tour of Europe.

First a bit on the methodology, as ‘Europe’ is a vague geographic notion these days. This data was sourced on Automotive News and includes sales from the 27 European Union countries minus Bulgaria and Malta, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey.

If you are not interested in Europe as a whole but in its individual countries, that’s OK too – just click here and look for your country on the right hand side.

Now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s get to it.

The VW Golf continues to be the best-selling car on the continent by far with 493,855 sales in 2011, it has now been on top of the European ranking every year since 2008…

The Ford Fiesta takes the 2nd spot at 372,977 units…

…just above the VW Polo at 371,454 sales.

The Opel Corsa ranks

…followed by the Opel Astra, Ford Focus and Renault Clio.

The VW Passat is the big winner in the Top 10 at up 10 spots and 43% on 2010.

Down 17% on last year, the Fiat Punto loses its spot in the Top 10 to followed closely by the Nissan Qashqai at #12 with 216,970 sales. The Qashqai hasn’t stopped progressing in the European ranking since its original launch in 2007 and has managed to rank within the monthly European Top 10 a couple of times already, including in September 2011.

The Skoda Octavia is up 2 spots to #14 and climbed into the European Top 10 for the first time in January 2012. The Mercedes C-Class moved up 9 ranks to it überholt its archenemy, the BMW 3 Series.

Europe 2011 Top 20 best-selling models

PosModel2011YoY2010Pos ’101VW Golf493,855-2%502,30712Ford Fiesta372,977-12%425,59523VW Polo371,4542%364,43934Opel Corsa327,717-2%333,62255Opel Astra327,4587%306,15276Ford Focus308,7476%292,34887Renault Clio304,106-13%348,92148Renault Megane251,487-8%272,61299Peugeot 207245,649-21%310,827610VW Passat245,11043%170,8762011Fiat Punto220,343-17%266,5531012Nissan Qashqai216,9700%215,9821313Fiat Panda189,527-20%236,3231114Skoda Octavia186,4400%186,9941615Citroen C3181,868-21%230,1401216Mercedes C Class178,34517%151,8482517BMW 3 Series166,860-11%187,6231418Skoda Fabia165,2592%162,2072319Seat Ibiza162,6313%157,6102420Audi A4162,085-6%173,06919

You can see the entire Top 318 best-selling models in Europe in 2011 here

Outside the Top 20, great performers include the BMW 5 Series, up 30% and 12 ranks to the Dacia Duster landing directly at #26 with 141,961 units, and the Opel Meriva up 22% and 8 spots to Notice the Nissan Juke up to #39 for its first full year of sales.

Other great performers this year in Europe include the Audi A1 at #42

the Peugeot 508 at #48

the Alfa Romeo Giulietta up 138% to #56

Kia Sportage up 131% to

Mini Countryman up 335% to #83

and Lexus CT landing directly at and by far best-selling Lexus for its first year in market.

Fully electric cars make a discreet appearance in this year’s ranking but 2012 should see some of them really take off: the Mitsubishi i is with 2,608 sales, followed by the Peugeot iOn at with 1,926 units, the Citroen C-Zero at and 1,830 sales, the Nissan Leaf at with 1,726 units and the Opel Ampera at and 304 sales.

The DR Motor DR1 manufactured in Italy (in fact a rebadged Chery Riich G1) is once again the best-selling Chinese model in Europe but it has lost its spark at with 1,886 units, down 40%.

Let’s conclude this article by observing that the Lamborghini Aventador sells its very first 63 units over the continent to rank

You can see 2010’s Top 371 best-selling models in Europe here:

Previous year: Europe 2011 All-models Top 371 ranking (source JATO)

Now for the usual golden nugget: those who have read up to here, I thank you profusely but you must be wondering where the heck is the best-selling car in the world, the Toyota Corolla? Yes I have kept the suspense up till the end. Well. Fact is when the Corolla hatchback was renamed Auris for the European market for the launch of the 11th generation 2007, it took most of the sales as the Corolla sedan has never been a favourite in Europe… Result: the Corolla is only in Europe with a bit over 26,000 sales! Pretty lame…

There. You are now an expert in all things European cars…

Till next week dear readers! Thanks for listening.

Source: Automotive News. I need to thank Tuga and Lancia Lover for sharing the data.

Note 1: The 2010 figures beyond the Top 50 are calculated based on the 2011/2010 variation in percentages, therefore the exact sales number for 2010 may be slightly different.

Note 2: The Top 318 list is incomplete and doesn’t account for absolutely all models sold in Europe in 2011. If you have sales data for any additional model in the whole of Europe please make sure to get in touch by commenting on here!

Note 3: This ranking includes sales from the 27 European Union countries minus Bulgaria and Malta, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey.

Matt Gasnier, based in Sydney, Australia, runs a blog named Best Selling Cars, dedicated to counting cars all over the world.

Matt Gasnier
Matt Gasnier

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  • Mandalorian Mandalorian on Apr 01, 2012

    The link to the full 318 doesn't work.

    • Matt Gasnier Matt Gasnier on Apr 01, 2012

      Hey Mandalorian, have you tried again? Should work now. cheers Matt

  • Suedenim Suedenim on Apr 02, 2012

    Question: How much, if any, of Japanese "underperformance" in Europe can be chalked up to import tariffs and EU non-tariff barriers? These are presumably a lot stiffer than those in America, which I imagine hurts Honda and Toyota in the "bang for your buck" department? Or in other words, the Corolla is the same car in Paris or Peoria, but it's more of a "bargain" in the latter?

  • MaintenanceCosts It's going to have to go downmarket a bit not to step on the Land Cruiser's toes.
  • Lorenzo Since EVs don't come in for oil changes, their owners don't have their tires rotated regularly, something the dealers would have done. That's the biggest reason they need to buy a new set of tires sooner, not that EVs wear out tires appreciably faster.
  • THX1136 Always liked the Mustang though I've never owned one. I remember my 13 yo self grabbing some Ford literature that Oct which included the brochure for the Mustang. Using my youthful imagination I traced the 'centerfold' photo of the car AND extending the roof line back to turn it into a small wagon version. At the time I thought it would be a cool variant to offer. What was I thinking?!
  • GregLocock That's a bodge, not a solution. Your diff now has bits of broken off metal floating around in it.
  • The Oracle Well, we’re 3-4 years in with the Telluride and right around the time the long term durability issues start to really take hold. This is sad.
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