New car sales on the rise in August

06/09/11

Matt Gibson

The number of people in the market for a car insurance deal is likely to increase following a 7 per cent rise in new car sales throughout August that put an end to 13 straight months of decline, according to new figures.

A total of 59,346 new cars were bought during the month, 7.3 per cent up on August 2010, thanks to higher demand from private and fleet buyers.

However, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), refused to get carried away by the figures and maintained that the overall outlook for the industry remained "challenging".

There was a 6.1 per cent fall in sales from January to August compared to the same period during the previous year.

August's top-selling new car was the Ford Fiesta, with 3,213 registrations. The Vauxhall Corsa came in second selling 2,901 models followed by the Ford Focus (2,858), the VW Golf (1,995), BMW 3 Series (1,739), Vauxhall Astra (1,613), VW Passat (1,526), VW Polo (1,467), Nissan Qashqai (1,312) and Audi A3 (1,125).