Corolla top in September

Press, 1 November 1984, Page 28

Corolla top in September

Toyota Corolla was New Zealand’s top-selling car in a declining September market, but Ford extended its market leadership to be more than 4000 cars ahead of Toyota for the first nine months of 1984.

New car sales in September, at 8482, were down on those for August (10,286) and July (11,088) indicating that the car market is now settling down after the initial impact of devaluation. For all that, September was the fifth consecutive month in which sales exceeded 7000 cars and at the end of the month, with threequarters of 1984 behind it, the Post Office had handled 75,114 new car registrations. With three models — the Laser, Telstar and Sierra — in September’s top 10, Ford remained market leader with 20.1 per cent to the 18.3 per cent of Todd Motors.

Toyota was next on 15 per cent. However, on the basis of the year’s first nine months, Toyota has sold more cars than anyone else with the exception of Ford. September’s top 10 models were Toyota Corolla (799), Ford Laser (706), Mitsubishi Sigma (668), Holden Commodore (582), Mitsubishi Mirage (574), Ford Telstar (448), Mazda 323 (412), Ford Sierra (358), Honda Civic (350) and Honda City (347). For the nine months to the end of September, the Ford Laser and Toyota Corolla were on level pegging with 6807 sales each and they were followed by the Ford Telstar (5601), Mitsubishi Sigma (4737), Holden Commodore (4424), Honda Accord (3909), Nissan Sunny (3516), Honda Civic (3324) and Mazda (3234).