Completely different top 5
When you see the umpteenth electric SUV, do you ever think back wistfully to times when bunches of perfectly normal compact mid-sized cars with fuel engines were still being sold? Then be sure to read on. We look at the sales figures from thirty years ago.
The best-selling car in the Netherlands this year to date (until April) is the Tesla Model Y. An American electric SUV with a starting price of more than €46,000. At number 2 we find the Chinese Lynk & Co 01, also an untraditional appearance in the Dutch street scene. Only in third place do we encounter a car that may look a bit more familiar: the Peugeot 208. That times have changed becomes clear when we look at the sales figures for the first quarter of 1993 in AutoWeek 20 of that year.
The undisputed number 1 at the time was the Opel Astra. Just like predecessor Kadett, another car that almost seemed made for the Netherlands. The first Astra had started 1993 incredibly well and was good for no less than 9,171 units in the first quarter. Incidentally, a contrast with the same quarter a year earlier, when there were even 14,696! At the beginning of 1993, the Opel Astra single-handedly took up no less than 8 percent of the Dutch car market and the number two followed at some distance.
That was the Volkswagen Golf (and Vento included), of which 6,378 were sold in the first three months of 1993. Just a little more than a year earlier, when the counter got stuck at 6,071. In turn, the Golf had a large margin on the number three, which also came from Germany: the Opel Vectra. The Vectra A was already quite old, but continued to sell well. 4,742 found an owner in the first three months of 1993. The facelift of a year earlier had helped to keep sales up a bit. Also freshly facelifted, much earlier in its existence, was number 4: the Ford Escort (and Orion). The last generation of the Escort had a difficult start and despite the facelift, the gap to the Golf and certainly the Astra remained large. 4,624 of them were sold in Q1 1993. The top 5 was completed by the oldest of the bunch: the Renault 19, of which 3,185 were sold. It was also facelifted in 1992. On photo 2 at the top of this article you will find the complete top 50 of that moment.
Compared to now
To get an idea of ​​how the five most popular models are doing in 2023, let’s take a look at the sales figures of those models or their successors known to date. This leads to the following rough equation:
| Top 5 Q1 1993 | Amount sold | Number sold 2023 | Position |
| 1. Vauxhall Astra | 9,171 | 634 | 68 |
| 2.Volkswagen Golf | 6,378 | 1,221 | 27 |
| 3. Vauxhall Vectra | 4,742 | 4 (Insignia) | 280 |
| 4.Ford Escort | 4,624 | 1,794 (Focus) | 14 |
| 5.Renault 19 | 3,185 | 2,272 (Megane) | 7 |
As you can see, the Renault Mégane still achieves good sales figures despite its age and with that it knows how to come close to what its distant ancestor once achieved. The Focus is also doing relatively not that bad at all. It’s a different story for the Golf and certainly for the Astra, they can’t stand in the shadow of their ancestors and we won’t even start about the Opel Insignia.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl