THE Ford Focus entered the fleet arena with a vengeance in 1999, racing to the top spot in the fleet best sellers' chart. The lower medium contender sold 66,726 units into fleet, ahead of last year's leader, the Ford Mondeo, which saw its fleet sales tumble 17.5% to 63,616 registrations.

Indeed, the vast majority of upper medium cars had a tough 1999 in their heartland of the fleet sector, with Vauxhall Vectra sales slipping 11% to 60,841, Peugeot 406 sales down 0.5% to 35,474, Renault Laguna sales plunging 13.2% to 22,152, Rover 400 sales crashing 46.8% to 17,984, Nissan Primera sales down slightly at 6.3% below 1998 levels, and the Toyota Avensis losing ground to the tune of 23.9% fewer sales than 1998. Only the Volkswagen Passat, up 2.6% to 20,472 sales, and the new BMW 3-series, up 27.4% to 17,300, bucked the trend.

Elsewhere, the facelifted Renault Megane and Peugeot 306 saw dramatic declines in their fleet sales of 20.7% and 20.8% respectively, no doubt losing out to the newer Focus, Astra and Golf. There was no place for any Citroen model among the top 25 fleet cars, and the car maker has now slipped out of the manufacturer's top 10 fleet table.