Europe's top-selling cars in September: VW Golf with another tap-in

The Volkswagen Golf continued its dominance as Europe's most popular vehicle last month but the Ford Fiesta is steadily decreasing its gap from the sales leader, according to data released by industry trackers JATO Dynamics on October 16.

September's biggest hits in Europe are all models which benefited from national scrappage schemes. The drive to trash older clunkers has allowed fuel-efficient compacts like the Volkswagen Golf, Ford Fiesta, Fiat Punto, Fiat Panda and the Renault Mégane to be the only top sellers to enjoy sustained success in 2009.

All these best-sellers, excepting the Focus, Peugeot 207 and Astra, enjoyed huge increases, from 14 to 90 percent, over their September 2008 sales.

"We are still seeing the market recovery driven by small cars and new models - in other words, the popular choices in national scrappage schemes," said David Di Girolamo, head of JATO Consulting. "This has clearly distorted the natural performance of some markets and models."

With many of these government initiatives now ending across Europe time will tell if super fuel-sippers continue their newfound popularity.

Top 10 Car Models in Europe in September 2009

Rank	Model	Total September 2009 Sales	% Change YtD*
1	Volkswagen Golf	59,552	+21.3
2	Ford Fiesta	51,291	+40.2
3	Opel/Vauxhall Corsa	38,947	-6.8
4	Ford Focus	32,329	-18.8
5	Peugeot 207	32,223	-16.4
6	Opel/Vauxhall Astra	32,154	-20.8
7	Renault Clio	31,513	-19.4
8	Fiat Punto	29,726	+10.1
9	Fiat Panda	24,783	+30.6
10	Renault Megane	22,050	+29.0

*YtD: 2009 sales totals compared with sales from January through September 2008

Figures were provided by JATO Dynamics, an auto industry research firm that tracks sales data.