THE Volkswagen Golf was the best-selling car across Europe during last year, closely followed by the Vauxhall/Opel Astra, whose sales leapt by 24% compared with 2004.

Sales of the Golf reached 469,248 units, up 3%, while the Astra registered 453,000 units. In third place was the Ford Focus, whose sales achievement of 410,466 units was 3% up on the previous year.

Data compiled by business intelligence company Jato Dynamics on European sales for 2005 shows that Volkswagen was again the top-selling car brand, with sales up 3.5% to 1,512,093 units. It was ahead of Renault (1,419,889) and Opel/Vauxhall with 1,323,561 unit sales.

MPVs continued to be popular, with sales up by 6% year-on-year. Mini-MPVs, at almost 1.4 million units, now rival those of the upper-medium segment. And the fastest growth in 2005 was in the premium lower medium segment (up 29%), while SUV sales grew by 11%.