How has the vehicle fleet of Latvia changed over the past 30 years?
Recently, the Central Statistical Bureau provided interesting data. In 1996, that is, 30 years ago, the most registered cars in Latvia were LADA - 107,087! Interestingly, in second place was another Soviet-made car, Moskvitch - 50,138. The top five also included Opel, Ford, and Audi.
Two years later, the top four remained unchanged, with only Volkswagen replacing Audi.
Even at the turn of the century, LADA maintained its leadership, while Moskvitch disappeared from the list of the most popular brands.
In 2006, LADA ceased to be the most common car in Latvia, yielding the top spot to Volkswagen and Audi.
Another 10 years later, the long era of LADA came to an end - this car transitioned to the category of historical vehicles and did not even make it to the list of the 15 popular models. The first place in 2016 was taken by Volkswagen - during that period, 128,480 cars of this brand were registered in Latvia!
To jump ahead, we can say that the German "people's car" still holds the leadership in Latvia!
In general, over the past 10 years, the leading group has remained unchanged: Volkswagen, Audi, Volvo, BMW, Opel, Toyota (in 2026 it was surpassed by Škoda), Ford, and Mercedes.
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