The small car racked up 437,505 sales – equivalent to a 105.5 per cent year-on-year increase - to beat the Volkswagen Golf.

According to latest figures from JATO Dynamics, the Golf recorded annual sales of just over 435,000 units, placing it ahead of the Ford Focus and Vauxhall's Corsa and Astra models.

Other bestsellers in the top ten included the Renault Clio, Fiat Punto, Ford Fiesta, Volkswagen Passat and BMW 3-Series.

Overall, the European new car market stagnated, rising by just 0.8 per cent compared to 2006.

Volkswagen was the region's top selling brand despite recording a 3.8 per cent decline to 1.6 million units.

Opel/Vauxhall was the second bestselling carmaker after retailing 1.32 million vehicles.

Ford was ranked third, followed by Renault and then Peugeot.

“We think the industry should be quite satisfied with the 2007 results,” said Nasir Shah, global business development director at JATO.

“Many of the European economies have been under pressure and taking into account the specific factors that depressed the huge German market, we think any degree of growth in 2007 is a significant achievement.”