Europe’s love-affair with 4WD still in full swing

WESTERN EUROPE
Europe’s love-affair with 4WD still in
full swing
Almost unscathed by storms that have blown even the biggest ships off course
Published: Fri, 11 April 2014 13:52:07 GMT
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Demand for all-wheel-drive cars, powered ahead by SUV-Crossovers, which remain the region’s most trendy means of transport to convey average folks to work, school, supermarket or out of town hypermarket, has zoomed to a new all-time high. For yet another year – shaped by the whims of fashion - the type of car bought by Europe’s consumers is continuing to change. AID investigates.

West European sales of 4WD equipped cars during the whole of last year picked up where they left off from the previous year’s record result, with underlying demand outpacing a declining overall car market for a fourth successive year in a row.

Europe's sales of such cars, made up in the main of fashionable SUV-Crossovers, but also conventionally styled cars with optional 4WD such as Audi’s Quattro derivatives, once again substantially outperformed industry expectations last year.

1.39m
4x4 passenger car sales across Western Europe last year

AID’s market watchers believe that this is due, to a large extent, to a sharp increases in the UK, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway, lifting last year’s total West European registrations of such vehicles to 1.39m units, a 1.6 per cent increase compared with the previous year.

Despite near economic meltdown in the eurozone and the worst regional car sales drought for well over two decade, after just a couple of years of sagging underlying demand during recession-gripped 2008 to 2010, West Europe’s market for 4WD cars appears to have rejoined the astonishing long-term growth path which first began to gather momentum during the very early 2000s...more

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> W-Europe’s car market finally moves out of intensive care 19 Nov 2013

DATA AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS WITH THIS ARTICLE:

EUROPEAN new 4WD CAR sales SHARE:

by country
FULL YEAR 2013 v FULL YEAR 2012

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1.39m 4x4 passenger car sales across Western Europe last year

1.39m
4x4 passenger car sales across Western Europe last year