(Tue 19 May 09)

The Volkswagen Golf has regained its position as the most popular car in Europe, according to industry analyst JATO Dynamics.

49,488 Golfs were registered across the continent in April compared with 43,253 examples of the Ford Fiesta, which briefly hit the top of the charts in March. The Fiesta is still going strong, though, with an increase in registrations of nearly 60% compared with last April, thanks to the introduction of the new version within the past year.

The third and fourth most-registered cars in April were the Vauxhall Corsa and Fiat Punto, though they are both behind the Peugeot 207 for the year to date.

Volkswagen is still the top manufacturer, nearly 100,000 units ahead of Ford, while Vauxhall/Opel is narrowly ahead of Fiat in third. Fiat is, however, the only brand to have achieved a rise in registrations between April 2008 and April 2009, thanks largely to the increased popularity of the Panda.

Germany is the country with the greatest number of new car registrations so far in 2009, and by a spectacular margin. The German figure of over 1.2 million is way ahead of the figures achieved by Italy (730,876), France (689,931) and the UK (613,833). Germany is also the only major European market to have seen a growth in registrations compared with 2008, a feat attributed to its early implementation of an incentive scheme to persuade motorists to trade in their old cars for new ones.

The sorriest tale in Europe is still that of Iceland, where registrations for 2009 are currently running at less than 10% of the 2008 figure.

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