So yesterday, all the major car companies ran April Fool's adverts, some where very funny, like MINI Cooper fuelled by a lekker blend of England's best tea. Now that that's died out, it's back to business, and the month of March's best selling vehicles are out, and it's no joke that they're pretty compared to last year.

36 633 passenger cars where sold in March 2014, compared to 37 612 in March 2013. Following last month's numbers, the was a slight upward movement from February's 34 431 cars. However, the increase from last month is not unexpected. For the past eight years, March has been the best month to sell cars in South Africa. Volkswagen remained the leader in the passenger car market, with its Polo and Polo Vivo models killing the competitions. But South Africans are spoiled for choice, thus when looking at the top selling cars, you can appreciate the variety of offerings, from the luxury BMW 3 Series, to the sporty VW Golf 7. Unfortunately, since the AMH & ADD importers of South Korean cars, concise information about each individual brand sold is not available as yet, but with 13.5% of the market in March, we can be certain that the likes of Hyundai i20 and Kia Picanto are very popular among South Africans.

Best Cars Sold in March 2014

  1. Volkswagen Polo Vivo with 2553

  2. Toyota Etios with 2364

  3. VW Polo with 2125

  4. Toyota Corolla/Auris with 1437

  5. Ford Figo with 1203

  6. BMW 3 Series with 1048

  7. Mercedes C-Class with 891

  8. Toyota Fortuner with 872

  9. VW Golf with 812

  10. Ford Fiesta with 695

By Car Manufacturer

  1. Volkswagen sold 8136 units

  2. Toyota sold 6208 units

  3. Hyundai/Kia sold 4945 units

  4. Ford Motor Company with 3674 units

  5. BMW Group with 2404 units

The sales of bakkies where marginally up from last month, at a total of 15699 in March, compared to 14850 in February. That number is also 2.8% more than last March (15289). The muted performance can be attributed to the rising cost of maintaining big vehicles, with their big tanks. Also, business owners are cutting down on spending, so there's less of a need to increase their fleets. It's up to a financially depressed consumer base to keep the demand going. Most of these buyers however are using credit, further indebting themselves. According to Wesbank, they received 6000 applications for vehicle finance every day in March. Interestingly, Hyundai/Kia outsell Volkswagen's [only] bakkie by 2:1. The Amarok is turning 4 this year, and it's nowhere near where it could be in terms of sales. Something radical will have to happen before it lives up to the hype it was launched with. As yet, the bakkie sales for March looked like this.

Best Bakkies Sold in March 2014


  1. Toyota Hilux at 3415 units

  2. Ford Ranger at 2162 units

  3. Nissan NP200 at 1654 units

  4. Chevrolet Utility at 1437 units

  5. Isuzu KB at 1432 units

By Bakkie Manufacturer

  1. Toyota sold 5055 bakkies

  2. General Motors sold 2975 units of mostly Chevy Utility and Isuzu KB

  3. Nissan at 2758 units

  4. Ford sold 2615 of the Ford Ranger and Mazda BT-50

  5. Hyundai/Kia with 1026 bakkies

The take out from this is that more and more South Africans are driving, and the increase in the Reserve Bank's interest rates, the price of petrol and diesel, and on-going strikes in the automotive sector and at various supplies (like the mines for raw metal), will negatively eventually cause cars to cost more in both the amount we buy them for, and the maintenance costs.

For last month's cars and bakkies sales numbers, click here.

Author: Pierre Theron