Popularity
The MK1 Astra was a strong seller in the UK and quickly established itself as Britain's second most popular small family car, but was never able to match the runaway sales success of the Ford Escort.
The MK2 Astra was a bigger seller than its predecessor, though again it failed to match the Ford Escort in terms of sales success. It further widened the gap between Vauxhall and rival products from Austin Rover, although the combined sales of ARG's Rover 200 and Austin Maestro ranges were often at least a match for the Astra's total sales.
The MK3 Astra took Vauxhall from strength to strength in the small family car market, after almost seven years on sale - and further narrowed the gap with the Ford Escort.
The MK4 Astra was also a huge success, and by 2001 it was the second best selling car in Britain overall behind the Ford Focus. Combined sales of Opel and Vauxhall Astra G made it the 26th most popular car in the world with a total production of 3,799,015.
The MK5 has so far been the most successful version of the Astra. It was Britain's second-best selling car in 2005, 2006 and 2007, further narrowing the gap between itself and the market-leading Ford Focus.
In March 2009, nearly 2,500,000 Astras had been sold over five generations since its launch 30 years earlier, making it the fourth most popular car ever sold in Britain, Iwith 90,641 sold in 2009,
For 2010, it was Britain's second best selling new car with 80,646 sold. It was only outsold by the smaller Ford Fiesta, and finally managed to outsell the Ford Focus and end Ford's lead of the small family car market after 37 years. Sales were down to 62,575 in 2011, becoming the fifth most popular new car in Britain.
Read more about this topic: Vauxhall Astra
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)