New Car Sales January 2015

Irish car and van sales increased in 2014 and have continued to do so into January 2015 according to the latest figures from the SIMI. Car sales were up 30% to 29,948 units and light commercial vehicles were up  60% to 5,051 units vs January last year

Combining the figures for car & van sales, year to date Ford are on top with 4,515 units, Toyota are in 2nd with 4,282 and VW in 3rd with 4,166 units.

“Coming on the back (pffft!) of strong industry sales in 2014, these figures show that the turnaround is thankfully showing some endurance,” said Ford Ireland chief Ciaran McMahon. “Of course, we are delighted that Ford was the top-selling vehicle in the combined car and van market, but what is particularly heartening is the continued growth in the van sector and what that says about the economic recovery in Ireland. When company owners are confident enough to renew their van fleets, that points to ongoing economic growth for the country as a whole.”

This will be Ford's best January performance in eight years with their car sales up more than 38% and van sales up a mighty 130%.

“The indications are that the general market uplift will continue during 2015 – all of which augurs very well for the Ford brand, as the company has a range of new models hitting the showrooms this year including the new Mondeo and Focus which have recently arrived and new versions of the C-MAX, S-MAX, Galaxy and last but certainly not least, the all new Ford Mustang – first time that Irish customers will be able to buy a right-hand drive version of the iconic nameplate,” concluded McMahon.

Whilst Ford have 2 cars in the top-five best-selling models it's the ever popular Volkswagen Golf that tops the sales sheets

	Top Five Models Jan 2015	Units
1	VW Golf Range	1,549
2	Ford Focus Range	1,238
3	Toyota Corolla Range	1,025
4	Ford Fiesta Range	911
5	Hyundai IX35 Range	882

Then And Now

The two images below show an interesting comparison between the component parts of a car in the 1940's and a modern car.

The VW Beetle pictured above is made up of just under 5000 parts, whereas a modern car, according to Toyota, will have in the region of 30,000 parts (this can of course vary quite a lot depending on make/model)

The most obvious change when comparing the pictures is the move away from a separate body and chassis to the one-piece monocoque construction we see now. The multitude of safety systems such as ABS, ESP, Airbags and even seat belts (which the Beetle didn't have originally) add to the parts count as do all the new emissions, comfort and entertainment systems we have on modern cars.

Cars are expensive bits of kit but when you think of all the parts that go into them you start to appreciate where some of that money goes. Imagine you averaged out the cost of every one of those 30,000 parts to €1.00 each, which is perhaps not as wildly unrealistic as it first sounds (yep, €1.00 is expensive for a nut or bolt but it's very very cheap for a tyre or a door!) Your average €30 grand Golf or whatever starts to look like reasonable value!