24 December 2015

UK Top 10 Models : 1965-69

Things were very different back in the late 60's in the UK. All the top 10 and in fact nearly all cars sold were built domestically. Green represents local brands and blue US owned. That said Hillman was taken over by Chrysler in 1967 so could be either colour and still be correct.

The BMC 1100

BMC: The Austin/Morris 1100/1300 range was top selling model in all but 1967, when the Ford Cortina was. The Mini was a classic in its time although through this period was losing sales slowly. The Farina range was mainly the Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge models that were replaced by the Austin 1800, which showed up on the chart for 1969. Finally the Minor model had been going since 1948 and was still selling well by the the mid 1960's.

Ford: The Cortina was 2nd but for 1967. The Ford Anglia made the list until 1968, when the even more popular Escort took over. The Corsair was an unusual in that is was similar to the Cortina in size. Finally the Capri sold well considering it was a coupé styled 2 door car.

Hillman: The Hunter (also known as the Arrow range for including badge engineered variants) was fine family car. It was supported by the Imp, a small, rear engined model.

Triumph: The small Herald is the only one to make the Top 10 for the brand. it offered something quite different and I always considered it a fun car to drive. A family friend had one and it's independent suspension amazed me, flying over small speed bumps like they weren't there. 6,340 were assembled in NZ I believe.


Model 1969 1968 1967 1966 1965

BMC 1100/1300 133,455 151,146 131,382 151,946 157,679

Ford Cortina 116,185 137,873 165,300 127,037 116,985

Ford Escort/Anglia 85,156 98,218 55,735 68,209 84,589

Vauxhall Viva 75,354 101,067 100,220 59,731 58,884

BMC Mini 68,330 86,190 82,436 91,624 104,477

Hillman Hunter 65,165 76,375 79,376


Vauxhall Victor 33,582 40,128 38,517 46,537 60,854

Ford Capri 33,047




BMC Farina/1800 29,005 30,284
48,077 52,503

Hillman Imp 28,161 35,295 40,858 38,870 42,663

Ford Corsair
31,014 35,993 38,412 44,463

Morris Minor

36,250
44,905

Triumph Herald


38,076 46,626

Top 10 667,440 787,590 766,067 708,519 771,965

% of Total 69.1 68.8 67.0 64.9 67.2

Total 965,410 1,144,770 1,143,015 1,091,217 1,148,718

Data source: SMMT.

At the bottom of the chart, the top 10 sales are included for each year, along with the percentage of total sales they represented. About two thirds of all sales were made up by these few models, quite different from today.

Other years in the series:
70-7475-7980-8485-8990-9495-9900-0405-0910-14.

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