Stand by for more car bargains in 2014

The top-two sellers will be driving the competition; an all-new Mazda3 is around the corner and Toyota will introduce an all-new Corolla sedan to sell alongside last year's champion.

Good supply of the two all-new top-selling models means that everyone else in the small-car class -- representing almost a quarter of all new vehicles sold -- will have to sharpen their pencils or risk becoming old stock.

To that end, the Mitsubishi Lancer will be in runout for most of the year, while Suzuki will also be pushing hard to clear the decks of its popular Alto city car, ahead of the new model which has grown in size.

The locally-made Holden Cruze will also find the going particularly tough against the newer models; Holden has already admitted it loses money on each one it builds and can't limbo much lower on price.

Volkswagen will likely maintain its promotional pricing on the Golf every other month as the German factory ramps up production, while Hyundai also has its revised i30 hatch and Elantra sedan twins to take to market.

"There's never been a better time to buy a new car," said Toyota Australia executive director Tony Cramb, intentionally repeating an old industry cliché.

Low interest rates and improved consumer confidence have helped drive sales, he said.

Several runout models -- particularly the Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton utes, both of which were Top 10 finishers -- have prompted unprecedented discounts.

The new-car market dipped by up to 3 per cent from August to November 2013 in the wake of the Rudd Government's proposed changes to Fringe Benefits Tax rules on company cars, but the industry expects a full recovery in 2014 after December's modest rise of 1.4 per cent.

The industry has forecast an increase from last year's record of 1,136,227 new-car sales, to 1,145,000 in 2014.

However, Mr Cramb said new-car sales in 2013 would have been higher if not for changes to Fringe Benefits Tax rules proposed by the former Labor Government.

"The FBT announcement made by the former government definitely slowed down business sales … there are many companies still just making their way back to normal purchases," said Mr Cramb.

He said it took the market "a lot longer than we had anticipated" to recover form the botched plan that would have quadrupled the tax on company cars.

"Companies have extended leases, delayed purchasing decisions, and rather than coming back once … the new Government made it clear they were going to implement previous Government's policies, there was a skepticism in the market among the big fleet companies."

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling