Ford has ended Toyota’s 11-year streak as the maker of Australia’s most-delivered new vehicle. New vehicle delivery data shows that in 2023, the Ford Ranger ute was the most successful car on the Australian market.
New car delivery data released this week shows how many examples of each make and model actually ended up in customers’ hands – rather than being a record of pre-orders or registrations.
And it was the Ford Ranger on top, with 63,356 units being delivered to Aussies in 2023.
See the full list of the top 100 most popular cars in Australia for 2023 here – and to know what’s coming next, check out our 2024 New Car Calendar here.
Last year’s winner, the Toyota Hilux, was in second place – just 2245 units behind the Ranger with 61,111 deliveries made from January to December 2023.
Another ute took third place in the form of the Isuzu D-Max – but its result of 31,202 deliveries shows the yawning gap that exists between the bronze and silver medal.
The Toyota Hilux (pictured) achieved second place
In a sure sign of the effect of taxation incentives that benefit light commercial vehicles in Australia, the most popular vehicle that was not a pick-up truck was the Toyota RAV4 which arrived in fourth place with 29,627 deliveries.
2023 was a bumper year for the Ford Ranger, with the ute being recognised in a range of industry awards – including the trophy for Chasing Cars Off-Roader of the Year for the Raptor variant.
The Ford Ranger line-up in Australia is very broad with 25 permutations of the pick-up truck available to buyers.
A large number of variants span from the XL Hi-Rider 4×2 model with a single-turbo 2.0-litre diesel four-cylinder engine ($36,380 before on-road costs) to the heights of the 3.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 Ranger Raptor ($87,990 before on-road costs).
In between sit XLS, XLT, Sport, Wildtrak, Wildtrak X and Platinum grades, variously using a range of engines including a 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel four-cylinder and a 3.0-litre single-turbo diesel V6.
Released in June 2022, the current-generation “T6.2” Ford Ranger uses an upgraded, strengthened, widened and lengthened version of Ford’s Australia-developed light pick-up chassis.
The acclaimed T6.2 platform also underpins the Ford Bronco and was co-developed with the input of Volkswagen, which chose to use T6.2 as the architecture beneath its second-generation Amarok pick-up.
Speaking of Amarok, the Volkswagen ute model saw 6626 deliveries in Australia in 2023. Volkswagen has targeted 10,000 annual deliveries of the Amarok but the new-gen model only launched in May 2023.
