The Ford Puma is the front runner for most popular car of 2026, seeing the most new car registrations so far this year.
UK’s top 10 best-selling cars of 2026 – with Kia beaten into top spot
The UK’s top 10 best-selling cars of 2026 so far have been revealed – and there’s two you may not have heard of. The Ford Puma is the front runner for most popular car of 2026, seeing the most new car registrations so far this year.
The Kia Sportage comes in second with just over 2,000 less sales than the Ford. The third, fourth and fifth spots were made up of Jaecoo, Nissan and Vauxhall models.
At sixth was the popular VW Golf, with Volvo at seventh, ahead of the little-known MG HS, which alongside Jaecoo, may not be a household name.
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Mini Coopers and another Volkswagen made up ninth and 10th. The UK new car market expanded by 24% last month, with registrations rising to 149,247 units, according to the latest data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
This growth largely reflects a recovery from an exceptionally subdued April last year, when many buyers brought purchases forward to March to avoid forthcoming vehicle tax changes, including the introduction of VED and the Expensive Car Supplement (ECS) for battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
While April is typically a lower-volume month, which can exaggerate year-on-year comparisons, this represented the strongest April performance since 2019, when registrations reached 161,064.
The SMMT also stated that demand for petrol cars rose 8.2%, while diesel registrations fell by 1%. Electrified cars accounted for 53.2% of the market for the second month in 2026.
Also, PHEV registrations increased by 46.4% to take a 13.8% market share, and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) increased 18.8%, meaning that they had 13.2% of all new registrations.
The top-selling UK cars so far in 2026:
Ford Puma – 20,339 sales
Kia Sportage – 17,835 sales
Jaecoo 7 – 17,688 sales
Nissan Qashqai – 15,699 sales
Vauxhall Corsa – 12,788 sales
Volkswagen Golf – 12,021 sales
Volvo XC40 – 11,360 sales
MG HS – 11,293 sales
Mini Cooper – 10,686 sales
Volkswagen Tiguan – 10,252 sales
