THERE was little wind in the sails of the first six places in our Top 20 for July, with all models remaining static as the market drifted into negative territory.

So the top six remained the same as July, with no prizes for guessing the first two (HiLux and Ranger) followed by the resilient pair of the Corolla and Mazda3 that showed the passenger-car segment was far from dead.

There was more action further below, particularly with the strength of Mitsubishi’s sales campaigns and a resurgence in Toyota’s Prado that in August took seventh spot, up from the previous month’s 12th.

Mitsubishi watched its Triton ute take 10th (up from 15 in July) followed by the Outlander SUV (now 11th, up in a revival reminiscent of the career of ex-PM John Howard from 25th), and the eight-year-old ASX that has see-sawed between Australia’s favourite small SUV and obscurity. The ASX finished August five spots higher at 15th.

But the balance of the market meant there were some big losers and none took the crown more than the Nissan Qashqai that fell to 30th from July’s 19th, and the Toyota RAV4 (was seventh and now plunged to 12th) and the Volkswagen Golf (now 14th, previously eighth).

The Isuzu Ute D-Max also dropped to 11th from 17th and Holden’s Colorado to 18th from 13th.

For the first time in months, Holden has a third player in the Top 50 with the Astra joining the Colorado (18th) and Commodore (41st) at 49th position.

Over at Ford, the Ranger was the most popular seller in August and the Mustang was at 38th position.