By Jacqui Madelin

GoAuto . com . au

With only one quarter of the year left to go , the race to end of year sales targets is well and truly on . To recap the latest new car sales figures we have called on Jacqui Madelin from the GoAuto News team to provide a comprehensive wrap up .

ast month marked the second best single month of new vehicle sales in New Zealand as the industry capped off the third quarter with more record sales .

NZ Motor Industry Association chief executive officer David Crawford confirmed more new vehicles sold in September 2016 than any other September on record , and only one month has ever surpassed it .

“ Record strong immigration , high levels of economic activity in Auckland and elsewhere and record low interest rates are combining to give consumers and business [ the ] confidence to purchase big-ticket items ,” he said .

“ If registrations of new vehicles continue at this pace , then it is possible we could see more than 140,000 new vehicles registered in a year for the first time .” That result has helped the overall market grow by 7.6 per cent year to date on the same period last year , to 107,122 units .

The micro segment was a little more popular this year , light and small sectors were not as busy and pick-ups have taken a slightly higher percentage of sales in 2016 , while more sports cars have been sold to the end of September than the whole of 2015 .

But New Zealand ’ s top model remains Ford ’ s Ranger , with 6406 sold ( 356 of them rentals ), followed by Toyota HiLux ( 4787 ), Toyota Corolla ( 3580 , including 1192 rentals ), Holden Colorado ( 2759 ) and Toyota RAV4 ( 2514 , 874 of them rentals ).

Rounding out the top 10 are the Mitsubishi Triton ( 2471 ), Kia Sportage ( 2326 ), Nissan Navara ( 2319 ), Mazda CX-5 ( 2130 ) and Suzuki Swift ( 1948 ). Just two passenger cars made the top 10 .

Toyota leads the table on 18,305 sales year to date , up 0.7 per cent for 17 per cent share , followed by Ford , up 25.1 per cent to 12,690

That strong result does not only come from Ranger sales , Ford NZ general marketing manager Cameron Thomas told GoAuto that there was strong interest in the Focus small car , as well as the Mustang pony car and Mondeo mid-sizer .

Ford Ranger returned to the top of the best-selling model chart in Q3

Mr Thomas said Ford also implemented a new retail strategy , and added that the company was “ seeing conversion in the retail space across the back of that ”. He said he does not expect sales to fall back in the last quarter of the year , with strong tourist numbers continuing to lead to strong rental orders .

GM Holden nabbed third , but it was down 4.5 per cent to 9866 units . Holden NZ managing director Kristian Aquilina says that was largely due to timing of deliveries .

“ Last year we delivered a fair few fleet vehicles earlier in the year , and this year some of our planned deliveries will be in the last quarter ,” he said .

Mr Aquilina said that with no Holden product currently on stream for the mid-size SUV segment – a key bracket in the NZ market – and with Colorado on run out until the new model went on sale on September 10 , the car-maker had been at a disadvantage , but he expects sales to lift for the last quarter of 2016 .

Mr Aquilina said rental agencies are keen to get additional cars to meet strong demand , and “ private demand is driven by additional population and additional wealth New Zealanders are experiencing in a very robust economy ”.

Mazda sales rose 10.9 per cent to 8338 by the end of September , with Mitsubishi up 8.8 per cent to 6855 in a year shaping up to be its seventh consecutive year of growth . >