Revealed: The surprising bottom 20 car manufacturers by registration
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The first quarter of 2018 has been a difficult time for the UK motor industry. According to figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the market is 15.7% down on the same period last year, thanks to a dramatic but not unexpected decline in the popularity of cars with diesel engines.
Despite a decline of its own, Ford is still the leading manufacturer in this country, having recorded 81,957 registrations from January 1 to March 31.
Volkswagen has extended its advantage over Vauxhall for second place, while premium German brands Mercedes, Audi and BMW complete the top six.
But what’s happening at the other end of the scale? The SMMT groups several brands into categories called Other British and Other Imports. Apart from those, it gives registration figures for a remaining 44.
Here we’ll take a look at the bottom 20. They are not necessarily doing badly. In fact, some of them are performing far better than the market as a whole, but others definitely seem to be struggling.
1. Jaguar
Despite the popularity of its first SUV, the F-Pace, Jaguar has seen its registrations drop by nearly 27% from just over 13,000 in the first quarter of 2017 to 9,709 in the same period this year.
As it has been ever since the takeover by Tata Motors, Jaguar is well behind its partner brand. Despite a near-20% decline of its own, Land Rover has still achieved about two and a half times as many registrations as Jaguar has in this period.
2. Dacia
Renault’s Romanian subsidiary appeals to people who want inexpensive transport, but it’s not having a good time at the moment. Registrations for the first quarter are down by around 12% to 7,182, largely thanks to a disappointing March.
It may not be a coincidence that Dacia has just announced a new range of finance packages which will apply to cars registered between now and July 9.
3. Mitsubishi
Once a close rival to Subaru in the rally-based performance saloon market, Mitsubishi is now doing far better in the UK.
Compared with this time last year, it’s pulling away from Porsche and closing in on Dacia, but since it’s operating in a different market from either of them Mitsubishi people probably aren’t devoting much thought to this. They’re more likely to be celebrating a 17.5% improvement in registrations to 5,997.
4. Porsche
The SMMT reports that 4,074 Porsches have been registered this year.
This represents an improvement of 9.02% and moves Porsche ahead of Lexus – by a single car – even though the German brand had a relatively poor March.
5. Lexus
Lexus is doing slightly better than parent company Toyota. While Toyota registrations are down by just over 5%, those of Lexus are up by just under that.
As you’ll have worked out from the last slide, they currently stand at 4,073, one less than Porsche has managed.
6. DS
The smallest brand owned by Groupe PSA (the parent company of Citroen, Peugeot and Vauxhall) has not been having a great time so far in 2018.
This time last year it was behind smart by just six cars. At 2,108, it’s now 41 ahead, but that’s only because of a much stronger performance in March.
7. smart
Mercedes-owned microcar company smart has had a downturn very similar to that of DS, with registrations less than two-thirds what they were twelve months ago.
They amount to 2,067, which is slightly less than the figure for March 2017 alone.
8. MG
However it may have been achieved, MG’s performance so far this year has been impressively strong. It’s doing 67% better than it was this time last year.
With 1,775 registrations, it has vaulted ahead of Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Infiniti, Jeep and SsangYong, all of which it was lagging behind a year ago.
9. Jeep
The second most successful of the Fiat/Chrysler brands (well short of Fiat itself, which outsells all the others by a huge margin) is also the one with the most disappointing figures at this stage in 2018.
So far it has reached 1,728 registrations, over a thousand less than this time last year. It’s ahead of Alfa Romeo and Abarth only because of a not too terrible March. At the end of February, it was behind both of them.
10. Abarth
Abarth, which builds high-performance derivatives of Fiat models, is on an upswing at the moment, with a 17% improvement in the first quarter of the year.
With 1,527 registrations it’s 69 ahead of Alfa. This time last year, it was 418 behind.
11. Alfa Romeo
Alfa is not performing as well as it did last year, but its decline is nothing like as serious as that being experienced by other car makers.
The 2018 total so far is 1,458 registrations. Of these, over 1,000 were recorded in March.
12. Subaru
There’s quite a big jump down from Alfa Romeo to Subaru. Back in its glory days, Subaru could easily shift well over 10,000 cars a year in the UK. In 2018, that is definitely not going to happen.
Nevertheless, Subaru is doing better than the market in general. At 978 registrations, it’s about 5% ahead of where it was in 2017.
13. SsangYong
A year ago, SsangYong was outperforming Abarth and MG. Now it’s behind them, following a fall in registrations from 1,359 to just 865.
This is despite an impressive five-year unlimited-mileage warranty, a complete refresh of its SUV range and the appointment of several new dealers. SsangYong will be hoping that the new Musso pickup, due here this summer, will help to reverse the trend.
14. Maserati
Maserati has posted only about two-thirds as many registrations as it did in the same period last year.
However, the famous Italian brand is further up the overall list than it was a year ago. Back then, it was running roughly level with Aston Martin and nowhere near Infiniti. Today, it’s well ahead of both.
15. Bentley
Bentley has been largely unaffected by the diesel downturn, since of all its models only one version of the Bentayga SUV is fitted with a diesel engine.
Even so, the SMMT reports that Bentley registrations, like those of Maserati, have fallen by nearly a third since last year. According to the latest analysis, they currently stand at 410.
16. Aston Martin
This time last year, Aston Martin’s registrations were only slightly over half those of Infiniti.
Despite a 46% shortfall this year, Aston is now well ahead, having achieved 347 registrations.
17. Infiniti
Nissan luxury brand Infiniti’s decline of over 75% since last year is by far the largest of any manufacturer listed by the SMMT.
In the first quarter of 2017 it was comfortably into four figures. This year its total is just 313.
18. McLaren
McLaren is the last manufacturer on the list to have achieved triple figures in the opening quarter – not a bad performance considering the size of its potential market.
It has reached 213 registrations, and although this won’t cause anyone at Ford to lose sleep it represents a considerable improvement over the same period in 2017, when the number was a far more modest 137.
19. Lotus
Sixty Lotus cars have been registered so far in 2018, a drop from last year’s 88. These are not large figures, but Lotus has never been a mainstream manufacturer.
A new version of the Lotus Exige has just been announced. It’s called the Exige Cup 430 Type 25, the 430 referring to its power output. The Type 25 part of the name honours a very successful race car of the early 1960s and also hints that Lotus intends to build just 25 examples.
20. Chevrolet
In the first three months of this year, just 17 Chevrolets have been registered. Most of this activity happened in March – by the end of February the total was just two.
There’s a good reason for this. Korean-built Chevrolet budget cars are no longer sold in the UK, and the big V8-engined sports models are not well promoted, so registrations may apply to older cars which have been hanging around for some time.