For the second year in a row, the bush capital's most popular new car was the Mazda3, a compact sedan, followed by the Volkswagen Golf, a hatchback.

Nationally, Australian drivers preferred something bigger, with the Toyota Hilux, a ute, the number one new car in 2018.

In Canberra, the Toyota Corolla - a compact sedan - rose two places in popularity, from the fifth most-popular car in 2017 to the third most-popular in 2018, beating the Mazda CX-5 and Hyundai i30.

But the biggest upset was the Hyundai Tucson, which was the seventh-most popular car in 2017, dropping out of the top 10 to 13th.

Other top-10 dropouts from 2017 included the Mitsubishi Triton, from nine to 11, and the Honda Civic, from 10 to 12.

Australia's number two was the Ford Ranger, a ute, before aligning with Canberra's taste; Australia's third most popular car in 2018 was the Corolla.

Overall, Canberra's favourite brand in 2018 was Toyota, selling 2414 cars, followed closely by Mazda with 2111 sales.

Hyundai was the third-most popular brand, with 1761 sales.

Nationally, Toyota was Australia's favourite car, with more than 217,000 sales, miles ahead of its closest competitor Mazda, with 111,280 new car sales in 2018.

Of the 10 most popular brands in Canberra, Kia and Hyundai had the biggest jump in sales in 2018, with about a 10 per cent and 15 per cent boost in sales respectively.

The Kia Cerato rose from eighth-most popular new car in 2017, to sixth in 2018.

Toyota and Mazda, holding Hyundai from the number one spot, were seeing slight sales slumps with about 3 per cent drops in new car sales each.

Ford had the biggest slump, sales dropped about 15 per cent in 2018, followed by Mitsubishi with a 4.7 per cent drop.

Canberra's 10 favourite new car in 2018 was the Nissan X-Trail, a compact sports utility vehicle, which had climbed from the 13th-most popular in 2017.

While the Honda CR-V climbed from the 24th-most popular car in 2017 to ninth in 2018, this would have been because manufacturing didn't begin on the latest model until mid-2017.

Luxury dealer Maserati, which recently opened its first Canberra store last year, sold five cars in 2018, up from just one in 2017.