Mike Rutherford's column

	If a decade ago somebody predicted UK consumers would buy 100,864 new Audis but only 200 MG

As you read this, some motor company bosses are popping champagne corks while others are falling on their swords. That’s because UK new car sales figures for the whole of 2007 were revealed in the second week of this month, and they demonstrate who’s brilliant and who’s atrocious at moving metal these days. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders doesn’t like to rank companies in order of success and failure, but I do – which is why I can tell you that Isuzu and Daewoo are joint bottom of the league with zero sales between them.

Tata didn’t do much better, as it shifted only five cars. Corvette sold 51, Hummer 61, Rover 72, MG 128 and Cadillac 344. But this lot have some valid excuses: Isuzu has effectively pulled out of the UK, Daewoo merged with Cadillac, and this and the other American brands listed above are new to the UK market with small, recently appointed dealer networks. Fair enough. But what’s Lotus’ reason for selling a mere 712 motors last year? And Perodua’s excuse for shifting 767?

At the other, healthier end of the table, Citroen’s successful pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap strategy placed the firm in a comfortable 10th place with 97,750 sales. Audi is ninth with more than 100,000 cars moved on last year. Honda (106,000), Toyota (118,000), BMW (121,000) also make it into the top 10, while the leading five comprises some but not all of the real big boys: Renault (127,000), Peugeot (146,000), Volkswagen (197,000), Vauxhall (331,000) and Ford (349,000).

Runaway victories for the blue oval and GM-owned Vauxhall? Er, yes and no. Don’t forget, Peugeot and Citroen are the same family and, together, sold nearly a quarter of a million cars here last year. VW and Audi are also joined at the hip and collectively shifted a whisker under 300,000. How long, I wonder, before the VAK (VW-Audi Kingdom) steals second place from GM, and then the top spot from Ford, whose market share is falling and is now less than 15 per cent?

But these and fellow top 10 firms should not be worrying about the way they perform in UK showrooms. BMW and Audi are now wiping the floor with Mercedes-Benz (82,000 sales), Jaguar (19,000) and Lexus (15,000). In fact, BMW sold more than Merc, Jag and Lexus put together last year. Yet of the best performers in Britain, it’s Audi that is advancing at a faster rate than any other maker. If, a decade or so ago, somebody predicted that UK consumers would buy 100,864 new Audis but only 128 MGs and 72 Rovers in 2007, he’d have been sectioned. But that is exactly what’s happened. The new Chinese owners of these once great British marques should be ashamed of themselves for letting MG sales slump by 94 per cent and Rover’s by 97 per cent. Not that they can fall much further, because actual figures are now close to zero.

Another firm that worries me is Nissan. Its market share has plummeted and, according to SMMT figures, its sales slipped to only 66,426 last year. That’s appallingly poor for a company that, as with Toyota and Honda, has a factory in Britain. Nissan used to be right up there giving VW a run for its money. Now it’s in the same sort of sales league as little ol’ Mazda and Fiat, neither of which has UK plants, but both of which have superior model ranges to Nissan’s. Hope I’m wrong, but the firm’s sales spiral here makes me increasingly concerned about the future of its Wearside plant. Since Dagenham, Luton, Blackpool, Longbridge and Ryton have died as car-producing centres, can struggling, out-on-a-limb Sunderland survive?