6. Vauxhall Astra (2016: 6th)
The latest Vauxhall Astra has been rightly praised as a massive improvement on its predecessor, and is certainly better than many other offerings out there. Yet it has continued to be comprehensively outsold by the comparatively ancient Ford Focus.
The Astra held its sixth position ranking in the best-selling cars of 2017, despite a 19% fall of more than 11,000 sales (49,370 registrations in 2017 vs. 60,719 in 2016). Has the media coverage of Vauxhall’s sale by GM to Groupe PSA had a negative impact on sales? The Astra’s two biggest rivals, the Ford Focus and Volkswagen Golf, both enjoyed excellent sales results in 2017, so it’s not like buyers have completely abandoned family hatchbacks in favour of SUVs.
We don’t expect things to improve greatly for 2018. That’s a great shame for Vauxhall and its workers at Ellesmere Port here in the UK who build the Astra, and it comes on top of today’s news that PSA is going to cut another 250 jobs at Ellesmere Port. Unless things improve soon, there is the very real possibility that Astra production could move to Poland. What can the company’s new French owners do to create more sales?