HiLux who? New Ford Ranger trumps Toyota as all-new model thumps the ageing icon

The new Ford Ranger climbed to the top of Australia's sales charts in January, with the Blue Oval's ute topping the Toyota HiLux to be crowned the country's best-selling vehicle.

It's a mega result for the Ranger, helping lift Ford to third position on the brand chart for January. But while the battle was won by Ford, the war remains with Toyota, which topped the brand chart last month with a massive 13,363 sales.

But let's stick with the utes for a moment. Ford's new Ranger found 4749 homes in January, up a massive 46.3 per cent on the 3245 sales the now-extinct version managed in the same month of 2022.

That was enough to push the HiLux into second position, with Toyota's top-seller managing 4131 sales (up 15 per cent on January 2021).

The Ranger's sales were strong enough to push Ford into third position on the brand list, with 6624 sales (more than 70 per cent of which were Ranger), behind Mazda (9407 sales) and Toyota (13,363 sales), but ahead of Kia (6006 sales) and Hyundai (5809 sales).

Rounding out the top 10 were Mitsubishi in sixth position (5276), followed MG (4015 sales), Subaru (3601 sales), Tesla (3313 sales) and Isuzu (2671 sales). Those last two are especially impressive, given Tesla and Isuzu each only have two models on sale in this market, and yet both have snuck into the top 10.

It's a tale of utes and electrified vehicles in the best-selling model list, with seven of the top 10 vehicles either a ute, or offering some sort of electrification.

We know that the Ranger and HiLux finished in one and two, but following on their heels in spots three through five were the Tesla Model 3 (2927 sales), the Mazda CX-3 (2417 sales), and the Mazda CX-5 (2189 sales).

The CX-3 was Mazda's best selling model in January.

The Tesla Model 3 result is particularly impressive, given it's the highest a pure EV model has ever ranked on the sales charts.

Rounding out the top 10 were the RAV4 (1958 sales), the Isuzu D-Max (1843 sales) the MG ZS (1842 sales), the Mitsubishi Outlander (1674 sales) and the Hyundai Tucson (1615 sales). 

The industry more generally continued its bounce back last month, with January the strongest start to the year since 2018. A total 84,873 vehicles were delivered, an 11.9 per cent increase on the same month last year.

“This data is the best January result since 2018 and shows that the industry is continuing to recover following years of supply chain disruption and delay,” says FCAI chief executive Tony Weber.

Most popular brands of January 2023

Most popular models of January 2023