Best of 2024 at Auto Trader

It’s beginning to look a lot like 2025. While it may seem like 2024 has flown by, many exciting and memorable things have happened this year. We’ve had the Olympic Games in Paris, ‘demure and mindful’ spread across the internet like wildfire, summer was officially labelled as Brat, and in winter we had everyone humming tunes from the movie Wicked.
On Auto Trader too, we saw some big trends in 2024 – from pop culture moments leading to an increase in car searches to celebrities’ cars being available to buy on our site. Find out all the weird and wonderful things that happened at Auto Trader in 2024.

2024 was a great year for SUVs. With 708 million views, SUVs became the most viewed body type on Auto Trader dethroning the hatchback which was the most popular body style last year. Hearses were the least popular body type with just 1,091 views.
Don’t be left behind – jump on this trend and start browsing thousands of SUVs available to buy and lease on Auto Trader.

A variety of stunning cars in excess of £1 million made it onto Auto Trader this year. The most expensive model advertised on Auto Trader in 2024 was a £3 million Pagani Huayra, an Italian supercar which boasts a top speed of around 238mph and can achieve 0-60 mph in just 2.8 seconds.
On the flipside, the cheapest advert that appeared on Auto Trader this year was a 59-plate (2009/2010) Vauxhall Astra which went up for sale for just £75. Thanks to its very low price tag, the Astra managed to generate over 1,600 advert views from those looking for a cheap run around.

On Auto Trader, there are over 400,000 new and used cars available to buy from over 100 manufacturers.
Of all these cars, the Volkswagen Golf remains a firm favourite on Auto Trader. Golf was the most popular used car of 2024 with 64 million views on site, whilst the Land Rover Range Rover was the most popular brand-new car this year with close to 2.2 million views. Tell us which car you’ve been browsing the most this year on our Threads!

Although production of the iconic Fiesta ended last year, the hatchback was once again the most advertised car on Auto Trader this year, with around 106,000 listings. The popular Volkswagen Golf came in second with 94,000 listings, followed by the Vauxhall Corsa, with 90,000 adverts.

While the classics like the VW Golf and Ford Fiesta will forever remain popular on Auto Trader, some really unique cars have been listed on Auto Trader this year.
Like this 1969 Volkswagen Beach buggy which was built and designed for an American children’s TV show The Bugaloos. The Beach buggy is currently on sale for just under £20,000. The bizarre-looking car features bug wings that flap and a funky interior that will no doubt turn heads on the road.

Of the hundreds of electric cars available on Auto Trader, the Hyundai IONIQ 5 was the most popular new electric car. Adverts for the IONIQ 5 were viewed around 536,000 in 2024. This was followed by the Kia EV9 with over 500,000 views and the Porsche Taycan with around 462,000 views.
If you too have been admiring the IONIQ 5 on Auto Trader, keep an eye out on our Electric Vehicle Giveaway where we’ve given away 45 electric vehicles so far, including two IONIQ 5s. Want to drive the top electric car? Check out our list of best electric cars of 2024, handpicked by our in-house EV experts.

The Mercedes-Benz A-Class was the fastest-selling petrol car of the year on Auto Trader in 2024, selling in just 17 days.
While looking at purely electric cars, the Tesla Model 3 was once again the fastest-selling used electric vehicle in 2024 shifting on average in only 19 days. With 18.7 million petrol cars currently on the road, our data reveals that we’ve now hit ‘peak petrol’ as drivers are increasingly making the switch to electric, leading to a decline in the number of petrol-powered cars in the UK car parc. In fact, new car registrations for petrol cars fell by 3.2% year-on-year between January to November 2024, while it increased for fully-electric cars by 17.9%, according to SMMT. Check out our full expert review of the Mercedes-Benz A-Class and the Tesla Model 3.

Did you know, Auto Trader is also famous amongst celebrities? We’ve had many big names advertise their vehicles on Auto Trader including famous footballers, singers, and even royalty.
In 2024, F1 legend and three-time world Champion Ayrton Senna’s personal red Honda NSX went on sale on Auto Trader year for a whopping £500,000. The car, which Senna frequently used during his stays in Portugal in the early 90s when driving for McLaren, was snapped up in no time with one lucky buyer meeting the asking price to get the keys to a piece of automotive racing history. Check out other celebrity cars which have been advertised on Auto Trader.

Once you’ve decided which car you want to buy, then comes the exciting stuff like deciding which trim and add-ons to get, and which colour you want your car in. A car’s colour can really change how it looks and feels.
If you’re trying to decide which colour to go for then here’s a little fun fact – Black was the most popular colour in 2024 on Auto Trader for the fourth year in a row. Black was the most viewed car colour with over 600 million views. Grey was second with 467 million views, followed by white with 362 million views. Now it’s your choice – whether to go with what’s most popular or to go with something unique that’ll make your car stand out. Want to bag yourself a black car? Browse all black cars available on Auto Trader.

The release of Charli XCX’s acclaimed album ‘Brat’ in the summer got the world embracing the vibrant ‘brat green’ colour. Collins dictionary announced ‘Brat’ as their Word of the Year 2024, brands started going green, and Charli XCX topped our list of the most-listened-to artists.
Brat-mania not only took over the world, but it also took over Auto Trader. Advert views for green-coloured cars increased by an impressive 24% in June 2024 compared to June 2023 on Auto Trader. So if you’re feeling brat too, explore our green cars that Charli would definitely approve of.

This is for all the Traitors fans who’d been glued to their telly every evening this January.
Hit BBC show The Traitors returned to our screens to much fanfare with the Land Rover Defenders featuring prominently in each episode. The show whipped up a new wave of interest in the iconic car with searches for the Defender shooting up by 39% on Auto Trader since the start of series one. Are you a faithful to the Defender? If so, browse the iconic car here.

This year we had the summer of sports with some really exciting events like the Six Nations, Wimbledon, Tour de France, Olympics, and the Euro taking place.
During the Euros, not only were the fans looking forward to some thrilling football action, but a car manufacturer was also eager to get matches started. Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD - an Official Partner for the UEFA Euro 2024 -saw a huge 69% week-on-week increase in the number of views of its new models on Auto Trader during the first weekend of the Euro 2024 tournament. As millions of viewers across the UK tuned into the footballing action, BYD stole the show with the brand appearing during TV advert breaks and on advertising hoardings around the pitch during the tournament. If your football fever has turned you into a BYD fan too, there are over 350 BYDs available to buy on Auto Trader. And you can also lease a BYD on Auto Trader.

Rory Reid’s been working hard to get you the latest and fastest cars on our YouTube channel. In 2024, Rory went from Asia to America, and reviewed some of the most interesting cars like the replica of The Red Pig C63s and the Shelby Cobra CSX10000 worth £200,000.
Out of all of videos in 2024, the one that really stuck-out with our viewers was the video review of the Tesla Model 3 Performance. Garnering over 800,000 views on YouTube, this video gives you all the information you need about this powerful car. Check out the full video here.