The Corsa, Golf and A-Class all feature in the year-to-date best-sellers, too, alongside the MINI Hatch (now available as a pure-electric model) and Toyota Yaris (hybrid). Again, the Fiesta is the best-selling model overall.

Despite the UK car market beginning to recover from the coronavirus-enforced shutdown, registration numbers overall were still down nearly 6% in August versus the same month last year. Year-to-date the market was down 39.7% – equivalent to around 600,000 cars.

Back in April, the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) revised its outlook for car sales in 2020 as a whole; it now expects just 1.68 million new cars to be registered this year, of which 915,615 have been sold year-to-date. If this rings true, these numbers would be the lowest annual figures seen since 1992.

Mike Hawes, the SMMT's chief executive said at the time: "A strong new-car market supports a healthy economy and as Britain starts to plan for recovery, we need car retail to be in the vanguard. Safely restarting this most critical sector and revitalising what will, inevitably, be subdued demand will be key to unlocking manufacturing and accelerating the UK’s economic regeneration."

The UK hybrid and electric-car market in 2019

Electric-car sales shot up by 220% in December 2019, ensuring that battery-electric vehicle registrations ended the year with a record 1.6% share of the overall market. A total of 37,850 electric vehicles joined the UK’s roads last year, up from 15,510 in 2018. This was despite total car sales – which are still dominated by petrols and diesels – falling by 2.4% over the 12 months of 2019.

Elsewhere, plug-in hybrid registrations rose for the second month in succession in December 2019, with 21.8% more PHEVs sold then compared to December 2018. Total sales for the year remained significantly down, however, with 17.8% fewer plug-in hybrids being registered compared with 2018. Battery-electric vehicles now represent a larger proportion of the new car market than plug-in hybrids.