The flagship Kia Sorento SUV topped the ranking in Auto Trader’s fastest selling used car rankings as vehicles which defy Government’s “rule of six” COVID-19 rules made a strong showing this week.

Despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson's tightening of restrictions on gatherings of more than six people earlier this week, the Korean model was one of four vehicles offered with seven or more seats in the online marketplace’s top ten fastest sellers list.

It was also one of six SUVs that found popularity with car buyers. 

Auto Trader said that the Sorento, in diesel-powered manual gearbox form, was taking an average of 24 days for dealers to sell as of September 23.

It was followed by: the Mazda CX-5 (2016 diesel manual, 25 days to sell); Kia Sorento (2014 diesel automatic, 25 days); Peugeot 2008 (2014 diesel manual, 26 days); Mazda CX-5 (2016 diesel automatic, 28 days); Kia Sportage (2014 petrol manual, 29 days); and Mercedes-Benz GLA (2019 petrol manual, 30 days).

Auto Trader said that the results had been achieved as used car demand rose 21.1% year-on-year in the week commencing September 14.

Demand for SUVs was up 33.4% year-on-year, higher than any other body type, meanwhile.

This level of demand has contributed to 20 weeks of consecutive price growth for used cars, with average prices increasing by 7.7% year-on-year between September 14 and 21.

Auto Trader’s director of commercial products, Karolina Edwards-Smajda, said: “The sustained consumer demand coupled with decreasing days to sell is supporting the continued price growth, which all points to a healthy market at the moment.

“Whilst all demand metrics point to healthy used car sales, few retailers can afford to be complacent.

“Retailers should capitalise on the huge demand by utilising the most up-to-date data to help them make decisions on what to stock and how to price it, which is especially key at a time when sourcing stock is a challenge.”

Auto Trader’s data indicated that the BMW 3 Series (petrol, manual) had generated the largest month-on-month price increase during the week starting September 14, with asking prices of one to three-year-old vehicles in Sport trim rising 23.3%.

Petrol vehicles dominated the list of top ten month-on-month price increases with the BMW 3 Series being joined by the Audi A3 S line (up to 1 year old petrol manual), which delivered a 20% price increase as the Nissan Juke Tekna (up to one year old petrol, manual) increased by 16.1%, Vauxhall Grandland Elite Nav (up to one year old petrol, manual) by 16.1% and Renault Captur Iconic (up to one year old petrol, manual) by 11.3%.