With more than 2.3 million vehicles currently registered in the UK, Volkswagen ranks as the third most favoured make among British motorists, with a 6.14% share of the whole parc.

The top 10 market areas for VW are Birmingham, Reading, Sheffield, Guildford, Glasgow, Leicester, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and south-west London. Together, these account for 18.6% of all Volkswagens. Birmingham alone has more than 75,000 VWs.

A quarter of all UK Volkswagens are aged 10 years or older, which must reinforce consumer perception that the German brand is strong and reliable.

Naturally its longest-serving brands – Golf, Polo, Passat, Beetle – make up the bulk of its parc. Nevertheless, MPVs account for a significant slice of VW dealers’ aftersales opportunity, with 62,620 Tourans and 46,699 Sharans on the road.

The German brand’s sports models have always been well regarded. Scirocco, in its new and old guises, has 12,883 registrations while the ageing Corrado, now regarded a classic, still accounts for 5,718 units, and 14,041 motorists are driving the open-top Eos

Some 42,000 more motorists drive convertible variants of other Volkswagens, such as Golf and Beetle.

DVLA data shows that 33.87% of all UK Volkswagens belong to female owners, 48.35% to males and 10.58% are company-owned.

Further analysis of the UK’s Volkwagens shows that automatic is a minority choice at 11.59% and 13.07% of owners have put a private registration plate on their vehicle.
The most favoured colours are silver (23.95%), blue (23.13%), black (20.06%) and red (10.45%).