A year and a half after its market debut the Fiat Grande Punto continues to enjoy an excellent run of sales success and the B-segment model was Europe’s best selling new car during February 2007 with 32,059 units registered, reports automotive market research agency JATO Dynamics. The Grande Punto, which was first launched onto the Italian market in September 2005 has now sold 68,681 for the year to the end of February.

The Grande Punto was also the best selling car across Europe during the early months of last year when its roll out was proceeding at a swift pace and with 35,050 units sold during February 2006 it is now down 8.5 percent year-on-year. For the year-to-date last year it had sold 73,811 units. The Grande Punto model range has been boosted by the arrival of a range-topping Abarth-branded turbocharged version which is currently being previewed at the Geneva Motor Show prior to its showroom debut in September. The Grande Punto is also set to be built outside Italy, with India, Brazil and China all set to begin assembly of the car within the next year.

In second place in sales across Europe last month was the Peugeot 207 (30,345) with the GM Opel/Vauxhall Corsa third (28,541) and the Renault Clio fourth (28,098). Behind these three top selling B-segment models was the Ford Focus (27,788), the GM Opel/Vauxhall Astra (26,928), VW Golf (25,407) and Ford Fiesta (23,763).
 

Boosted by the arrival of the sporty 100HP version and a very strong month for sales in its home market, where it is the second best selling car behind the Grande Punto, the Panda was in ninth place. With 23,043 sales last month compared to 18,026 during the same period of 2006 it was up 27.8 pct year-on-year; and with 47,484 unit sales to the end of February the Panda is 21.7 pct up on the 39,010 that were registered during the first two months of 2006. With 21,007 sales the VW Passat rounds out Europe's top ten best sellers in February.

JATO Dynamics is the leading supplier of automotive market intelligence delivering the world's most complete, accurate and up-to-date databases of vehicle prices and specifications, industry news including incentives information, sales and registration data. Every day of the week, JATO Dynamics' researchers are working in 45 countries to source over 1000 items of vehicle data providing consistent, comparable information on all makes and models.