2014 Vehicle sales shatter records

The Ford Ranger was the top selling ute of 2014. Photo / NZME.

New Zealand's car industry is celebrating record sales, and broken records, after official figures were released this week for 2014 vehicle registrations.

There were 127,179 new vehicles registered, according to the Motor Industry Association (MIA). That broke a 30-year record and was up 12 per cent on 2013.

MIA chief executive officer David Crawford said the figure reflected "the strong New Zealand economy, competitive pricing made possible by the relative strength of the New Zealand dollar and a wide range of new models introduced during the year".

"The previous highest year for new vehicles sales was in 1984 where 123,247 new vehicles were registered for that year."

There were several other records broken with the Toyota Hilux ending its 32-year run as the best selling ute in New Zealand.

Instead that spot went to Ford's Ranger, thanks in part to a dominance of 2WD automatic sales. There were 6330 Rangers sold in 2014 with the Hilux coming in second with 5774 sales.

But Toyota New Zealand fought back with a social media and billboard campaign this week claiming it had the top-selling 4WD ute in the country.

The high ute sales reflected in a record number of commercial vehicles sold in any one year with 36,662 units, beating 2013's figure of 30,822 units.

The third record was SUV sales growing to 29 per cent with 37,013 units registered.

In the hard-fought premium segment, BMW NZ retained its number one title for the third consecutive year with 2125 of its vehicles registered, 51 more than Audi NZ.