UK government’s scrappage scheme has helped Hyundai to turbocharge its new car sales and overtake some of its main rivals in the UK car market, including Renault and Fiat. To help the auto industry, which has been hit hard by worldwide recession, the UK goverment introduced a 300 million-pound “Scrappage Scheme” that encourages car owners to trade in their more than 10 years old cars for a 2,000 pound subsidy to buy a new vehicle.

The Scrappage Scheme has been introduced to the UK motorists in late April and has resulted in 60.000 new car orders with Hyundai taking the lion share of the new car sales. Since April 22nd to June 7th Hyundai received 8.246 orders for their compact and sub-compact cars. With 7.300 new car orders Kia Motors -a Hyundai affiliate- also received a high number of new car orders. Kia

Thanks to the scrappage scheme Hyundai sales in May leapt up 36 percent to 3.325 units making it the fastest-growing car company in the UK. The company could have sold even more new cars if they could have got them. The past four weeks have been absolutely amazing for the company because Hyundai dealers across the UK took more than 9.000 orders. That is almost a third of the total number of Hyundais sold in 2008 and a massive 750 percent increase in the number Hyundai would normally expect to sell in one month.

Among the Hyundai cars with the highest demand were Hyundai i10 mini-car, i20 subcompact car and i30 compact with 1065, 1051 and 894 sales, respectively. Those customers who ordered an entry-level i10 mini-car will have to wait for its delivery the end of August 2009.

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Cars that are being scrapped in exchange for sub-compact Hyundais include a range of sport car, large sized SUVs and luxury sedans. As you will see some of the cars customers have traded have come as a bit of a shock.

One of the Hyundai dealers in the UK was amazed to see a large-sized Jaguar XJ-S luxury sedan being sent to the scrapper in exchange for a new Hyundai i10 minicar, while another crushed a Jaguar XJ6 to make way for a new Hyundai i20! Also appearing on the list were 34 BMWs, 22 Audis, 32 Mercedes’, Nissan 300ZX and several Mazda x5s, all being replaced by new Hyundais.

The Scrappage Scheme has given an opportunity to 10 million UK drivers to upgrade their old gas-guzzlers with cleaner, safer and more reliable new cars. Among thousands of UK motorists that grabbed the opportunity to trade in their old cars was also a 94 years old man who picked up a brand new Hyundai i10!