Over 2000 units vanished without trace from the small car segment in the month of September, according to industry statistician, VFACTS.

The difference, year on year, was calculated by subtracting the small car sales figure of 17,194 units in September 2007 from 19,320 units for the period September 2006.

Of those lost sales, Corolla accounted for nearly 300, Mazda3 dropped a staggering 650 and -- even worse, comparatively -- Holden Viva plummeted from 1221 units in September '06 to 670 for last month.

Kia Cerato slid from 618 sales last year to just 152 last month and Mitsubishi sold just 624 units last month versus 1417 in 2006. Of course, in the case of the Lancer, Mitsubishi was clearing stock of the old CH model in preparation for the launch of the new CJ range (more here).

It wasn't all doom and gloom for small car sales. Ford's Focus picked up an extra hundred sales, as did Hyundai Elantra. Subaru's new Impreza picked up nearly 300 extra sales with the introduction of the new model.

Most importers were lucky if they got away with stagnant small car sales for the month.

The change in fortunes for the small car sector contrasts with much smaller sales declines in the medium and large car sectors  -- a little over a hundred sales less in each case. Small cars appear to have lost ground to the light car segment (up 1054 units) and the compact SUV segment, which picked up an extra thousand units.

Despite this, the total market continued to grow in September. Year-to-date sales in total numbered 782,362 -- with three months of sales remaining for the year.

Toyota was the top-selling brand in Australia and the three top-selling cars in the market for the month were Holden Commodore (4525), Toyota Corolla (3561) and Ford Falcon (2852).

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