When searching for a new ride, which models are catching the eyes of Canadian consumers?

This past April, the most popular passenger car in Canada was the Hyundai Elantra, which notched 5,535 sales, DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. reported.

This marks a 3-percent year-over-year improvement for the No. 1 passenger car in the country.

Coming in the No. 2 spot was Honda’s popular Civic, which touted 5,424 sales this past month. That said, this marks a 9.7-percent decline in sales year-over-year for the Civic.

“Competition between Civic and Elantra has intensified this year, with Hyundai’s compact car (+3.9 percent year-to-date) leading its Alliston-assembled rival by a scant 161 units on a year-to-date basis (16,872 Elantra units versus 16,711 Civic units),” the firm shared.

For large pickups, the Ford F-Series remains the hot buy for Canadian consumers as the favourite light truck and the top selling vehicle of any type in April.

A total of 12,016 F-Series trucks were purchased in April, up 38.3 percent from last April “and well in excess of sales totals amassed by second place Ram Pickup (+30.9 percent / 8,020 units) or third place GMC Sierra (+17.7 percent / 4,965 units),” DesRosiers reported.

The F-Series sales contributed to overall new-car sales growth in April, along with the large luxury sport utility segment, both of which showed the month’s highest year-over-year segment gains at 26.4 percent.

Many specific models also helped push the overall sales growth to 8.9 percent year-over-year for April, including the Chevrolet Cruze (+14.4 percent), Volkswagen Jetta (+17.4 percent), Ford Fusion (+20.8 percent), Ford Escape (+26.4 percent), Honda CR-V (+30.6 percent), Chevrolet Silverado (+10.0 percent), Toyota RAV4 (+36.1 percent) and Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (+16.5 percent).

Sarah Rubenoff can be reached at srubenoff@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing Canada on LinkedIn and Twitter.