Toyota HiLux edges Ford Ranger as sales battle reignites

Toyota’s ageing HiLux is having a revival of sorts in 2025, recording its fourth monthly sales victory of the year, beating the much newer Ford Ranger.

According to September’s VFACTS report by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Toyota delivered 5047 examples of the HiLux locally last month, adding to its previous wins in April, May and July.

Behind it was the Ford Ranger with 4867 deliveries, with just 180 vehicles separating the two utes. The result comes despite the current-generation HiLux being 10 years old (albeit with many facelifts and tweaks) compared to the three-year old Ranger.

Year-to-date, the Ranger is still on track to get a hat-trick of annual sales wins with 42,050 deliveries made between January and September, however the HiLux is close behind on 40,813 examples delivered.

Back in 2023, the sales race between the pair came down to the wire, with the HiLux leading by 389 deliveries (55,968 vs 55,589 for the Ranger) at the end of November, though a huge December pushed the Ranger to an annual win with 63,356 deliveries compared to the Toyota ute’s 61,111.

While the Toyota HiLux is relatively long in the tooth compared to the Ranger, a new-generation model is on its way next year, with recent information showing it’ll likely drop its two most affordable engines which drive fleet sales.

The HiLux and Ranger were joined on the podium in September by the Tesla Model Y on 3927 deliveries, helping the EV specialist to record its best sales month since June 2024.

Ford got a second model into the top five with the Everest, recording 2558 deliveries, just four vehicles ahead of the RAV4 - another Toyota model set to enter a new generation in 2026.

Despite being tipped to be the best-selling vehicle overall in 2025 by Toyota executives, the RAV4 is well off the pace of the Ranger and HiLux, with its 35,118 deliveries year-to-date placing it in third.

Chery continued a strong recent run of Chinese brands by finishing in sixth spot ahead of the Isuzu D-Max, the BYD Sealion 7, Toyota LandCruiser Prado, and GWM Haval Jolion to wrap up the top 10.

While it became the first car from a Chinese brand to record a top five monthly sales result in Australia back in June, the BYD Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute just squeezed into the top 20 in September.