Cork car registrations fell 12% in 2017

CAR registrations in Cork fell by 12% in 2017 with Brexit and the Euro-to-Sterling exchange rates cited as reasons for low consumer spend in the Irish motor industry.

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) has released their figures for last year which show 16,520 new vehicles were registered in the county last year, compared to 18,808 in 2016 — mirroring a similar decrease across the country.

Nationally, there were 131,356 new car registrations compared to 146,649 in 2016.

SIMI director general Alan Nolan said 2017 had been a very challenging year for the Irish motor industry. “Without Brexit, we would have anticipated a reasonable level of growth in the market but in the aftermath of the UK vote we had modified our projection to 132,000 and that prediction turned out to be very accurate with the car market finishing at 131,356,” he said.

“This number is still better than most recent years and produced reasonable volumes across all vehicle sales sectors,” he added.

Once again, Volkswagen maintained its position as Ireland’s most popular car manufacturer with Toyota, Ford, Hyundai and Nissan making up the rest of the top five.

The Hyundai Tucson is the most common car on Irish roads, with the Volkswagen Golf, Nissan Qashqai, Skoda Octavia and Ford Focus also popular with Irish motorists.