Auto Trader has exclusively revealed to Car Dealer the Top 50 most searched for cars on its platforms in 2020.

In first place, with an incredible 487m searches and 19.6m advert views was the perennial Volkswagen Golf.

It comfortably took the top spot, appearing in 109m more searches during the year than the second placed Mercedes C Class.

The Merc clocked up 378m searches and 15.4m advert views, while in third place was the BMW 3 Series, which appeared in 337m search results and had 15.1m advert views.

The disparity in the number of searches and advert views is because of the different ways people can search on Auto Trader and how they are counted by the classified ad firm.

A spokesman explaoined: ‘The searches are the number of times models may have appeared in a result. For example, a 1 Series would come up in searches for “BMW”, “hatchback”, “silver” etc, where as an advert view would be someone specifically looking at a 1 Series, so a more accurate picture of desirability.’

In total, the top 50 cars in the list racked up 7.3 BILLION searches during 2020 – a year in which used car prices and the market went crazy, following an increase in demand from buyers.

Auto Trader’s Ian Plummer said: ‘2020 saw a growing interest in car ownership and the desire to buy a new or used car. 

‘This is partly affected by a growing sense of wanting personal space, and we can see our audience are using that as a key driver for car ownership.

‘There’s also evidence that people enjoy driving and enjoy owning a car – especially millennials.’

But what else made the list of the most searched for cars in 2020? We reveal the full table below exclusively for Car Dealer members.

This list is reserved for members of the Car Dealer website and to get access to the list you need to log in with your name and email address, or log in via a social media account.