THE extent of the nation's love affair with the car is revealed today as fish4cars, the nationwide cars classified website, unveils its" top ten" of the UK's favourite makes and models.

The report, based on an analysis of 15 million searches for cars on the site between January and May 2007 reveals the UK's most popular cars so far this year with the Ford Fiesta coming out on top.

The fish4cars top ten by make and model Jan - May 07

  • 1. Ford Fiesta 628,000 searches
  • 2. Vauxhall Corsa 582,000 searches
  • 3. Volkswagen Golf 496,000 searches
  • 4. Ford Focus 385,000 searches
  • 5. Peugeot 206 367,000 searches
  • 6. Renault Clio 345,000 searches
  • 7. BMW 3 Series 331,000 searches
  • 8. Audi A3 325,000 searches
  • 9. Honda Civic 300,000 searches
  • 10. Ford Ka 189,000 searches.

The report also includes a comprehensive breakdown of what car models are the most popular regionally.

The UK as a whole is a nation of Ford lovers, but there are a number of regions where other makes take pole position - London and Slough, for example, where the Volkswagen was the most frequently searched model. Vauxhall cars are more popular in the Midlands, the North and in Scotland.

Joe Slavin, fish4 CEO, said. "The top ten shows that the UK's love affair with the small car continues, with the trusty Fiesta being the nation's favourite runaround.

"There's talk that the Fiesta could be discontinued - not if fish4cars customers have anything to do with it, it's a clear winner!" Joe also comments "it is interesting to see so many searches for high performance cars on the site which is clearly a direct result from the increase in regional dealers joining fish4cars this year"

Price-wise, the most popular bracket is for cars under £5,000, with the £7,500-£19,999 bracket following closely. fish4cars also has a growing selection of high-end vehicles with the BMW 3 Series and the Audi A3, just edging the Mercedes Benz out of the top ten.

The report reveals that the January-May period has been fish4cars' best ever start to a year with an average of 450,000 car buyers per month visiting the site. The period saw 464,000 visitors to the site in March - the highest number of car buyers in a month the company has ever received.

The start of 2007 has also seen the growth of the fish4cars dealer network with 1000 dealers signing up in the last 12 months. In total, 3,000 dealers have joined to date. This year, fish4cars has also, for the first time, made motorcycles available on the site with almost 7,000 models registered. fish4cars also has almost 4,000 vans and trucks for sale on the site.

Colin Mathieson, sales director for fish4cars, said: "2006 was spent training the sales teams of newspapers around the country to appreciate the value of online advertising. We have now begun to see the benefits of this training and with our sales team introducing more car dealers to the fish4cars website, we are seeing a dramatic increase in traffic, response and sales throughout".