It’s safe to say 2020 will not be a vintage year for most of us, but the car industry was hit as hard as any by the coronavirus crisis. Sales were down almost 30 percent for the year as a series of lockdowns forced dealerships to close and the threat of regulatory changes impacted buying habits.
But it’s a new year now, and that means we can put all the nastiness of 2020 behind us, right? Well, not quite. We might be out of lockdown, but the industry is still facing a global semiconductor shortage.
Yet the show must go on and people will still need new vehicles, so sales have continued. Despite lockdown keeping a lid on the market in January, February and March, a surprising number of cars have still flown out of showrooms. Thanks to a strong-ish performance in April and May, new car sales are now well up on last year, with more than 1.1 million new cars already on the road in 2021.
So if sales are continuing, the question remains: which cars are we Brits buying? Using data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), we’ve pieced together a list of the 10 most popular new cars of 2021. So far.
See what made last year's top 10:
