Top best-selling vehicles in Australia revealed

Unless you’re in the habit of checking the monthly new car sales statistics, you might be more than a little surprised to discover what Australia's two top selling vehicles were in October and November.

No, neither was a Corolla. Or even one of the many SUVs rapidly overtaking standard passenger cars as Australia’s preferred class of wheels. Instead, try a pair of what are classified as “light commercials” – the Toyota Hi-Lux followed by the Ford Ranger. What have we become, a nation of tradies?

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There were 3,839 new Hi-Lux sold in November, 14 per cent more than the same month last year. Ford sold 3,410 Rangers, up 12.6 per cent. The Toyota Corolla came third (2,957, down 5.4 per cent), Toyota Camry fourth (2,957, down 2.2 per cent) and the Mazda3 (2877, down 7.3 per cent) filled out the top five.

Another “truck”, the Nissan Navara managed 10^th place with 1,938 units. The top-selling SUV was the Mazda CX-5 in 9^th place with 1,956 sales.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries says the advent of the dual cab light commercials are responsible for the class’ rise and rise.

“Private buyers are increasingly using these dual cab utilities as a weekday workhorse and a weekend recreational vehicle,” said FCAI chief executive, Tony Weber.

“The growing sophistication of these vehicles with their passenger car comfort and equipment levels, family-sized cabins and strong towing capacity positions them as an alternative to the traditional passenger car. More entrants to this light commercial market are on the way in coming years so we can only expect this segment to grow.”

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That a pair of light trucks topped the charts is an indication of how diverse and changing the national fleet has become. Despite topping the individual sales count, light commercials only accounted for 18.8 per cent of the market.

Passenger car sales were still the biggest category in November, 40.3 per cent of the market, but continuing to slide away as SUVs gained another 1.4 percentage points to reach 37.9 per cent. SUVs are set to become our favourite new vehicle in 2017.

Car sales also tell us plenty about the economy. November sales were effectively level with November 2015, but the nation’s car yards are on track for another record year. We’ve bought 1,079,370 new vehicles with a month to go, 2.2 per cent more than the time last year. That speaks of consumers willing to spend on major items when they perceive value – or a tax incentive in the case of those using novated leases.

Whether 2017 proves to be another record year might be more uncertain. Reserve Bank research last year indicated higher housing prices translated into increased new vehicles sales. The central bankers returned to mine the data from another angle last month and found a correlation between the buying enthusiasm of voters and whether their party of choice was in power.

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So with indications of housing prices flattening and dissatisfaction with all sides of politics, the nation’s vehicle dealers will be hoping the RBA research doesn’t correlate as well on the downside as the up.

Meanwhile, the breakdown of the nation-of-manufacture tells the story of changing manufacturing presence. Thanks primarily to the light trucks and some SUVs, a milestone was reached in July when Thailand was the single-biggest source of vehicles sold in Australia.

The Thais did not keep hold of that title, but are our second-biggest source over the first 11 months of this year – 260,232 vehicles, up 14.5 per cent, behind Japan with 298,914 and ahead of Korea with 150,331.

As Australian vehicle manufacturing winds down, just 7,486 locally-made cars were sold last month, virtually the same number as were made in Germany.

Michael Pascoe is one of Australia's most respected finance and economics commentators with over four decades in newspaper, radio, television and online journalism. He regularly appears on Channel 7's Sunrise and news programs and is a regular conference speaker, MC and facilitator.