February car sales

In February's sales results released this morning, the small hatch and sedan range from Hiroshima placed behind Holden's Commodore. But while the latter is hugely reliant on fleet sales, people spending their own dollars saw the Mazda sell only 254 units less.

Spurred by a $21,990 driveway deal for its entry level Neo, the Mazda3 - which has no fleet fat in its sales figure - easily outsold its direct rivals, Toyota's Corolla and Holden's Cruze.

These strong "real money" sales, as opposed to cut price deals for fleets, means private buyers make up the greatest portion of February's 80,896. Private money accounted 39,776 sales, about 1000 more than business, government and rental fleets combined.

This is considered highly unusual for the month in which fleet sales usually rebound after the traditionally quiet January. And this is bad news indeed for the Ford's struggling Falcon, which climbed back into the top 10 after its unprecedentedly poor 13th placing in January but could manage only 1572 sales.

By polar contrast, the Commodore scored 3,829, again small-medium four cylinder imports dominated the top 20 models, which good news for Holden, whose Cruze has began local production, but hard lines for Ford, whose new Focus does not reach Australia until the third quarter of this year.

"This is a solid result reflecting the strong underlying demand for new vehicles," says Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries chief executive Andrew McKellar. “Sales to private customers increased 4.1 per cent during February. This is an encouraging indicator of the market and reflects a strong level of economic confidence."

FEBRUARY'S TOP SELLING MODELS

1 Holden Commodore 3,829
2 Mazda3 3,575
3 Toyota Hilux 2,892
4 Hyundai i30 2,654
5 Toyota Corolla 2,600
6 Holden Cruze 2,582
7 Nissan Navara 2,207
8 Ford Falcon 1,572
9 Mazda2 1,572
10 Mitsubishi Lancer 1,561
11 Toyota Camry 1,533
12 Mitsubishi Triton 1,507
13 Hyundai Getz 1,456
14 Toyota Yaris 1,3751
15 Subaru Impreza 1,320
16 Subaru Forester 1,221
17 Toyota Prado 1,215
18 Volkswagen Golf 1,215
19 Ford Ranger 1,208
20 Ford Fiesta 1,160

TOP 10 BRANDS

Toyota        29,421
Holden       18,699
Mazda        14,844
Ford           14,015
Hyundai      13,017
Nissan        10,469
Mitsubishi    9,655
Subaru          6,830
Volkswagen      5530
Honda            4812