Australians bought a record number of motor vehicles in 2013, helped along by increasing demand for sports utility vehicles (SUV).

More than 1.13 million vehicles were sold nation-wide during the year, up from 1.11 million in 2012, motoring industry figures show.

Passenger cars remained the most popular, accounting for nearly 50 per cent of all sales, though the strongest growth was in SUVs, which increased their market share from 27.6 per cent to 29.4 per cent.

Toyota was the top-selling car marker for the 11th consecutive year, with nearly 215,000 vehicles sold – almost twice that of nearest rival Holden.

The company also had the most popular vehicle, with the Corolla notching up sales of more than 43,000, followed by the Mazda3, with 42,000 sales.

Of the Australian-made cars, sales of Holden Commodore slipped nine per cent to 28,000, while Toyota Camry sales were also down nine per cent to 25,000 sales and the Holden Cruze suffered a 32 per cent decline to 24,421, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said.

Holden announced late last year it would close its local manufacturing operations from 2017, while Ford will close its Geelong and Broadmeadows factories in 2016.

Toyota has yet to make a decision on its Australian operations.

But the company’s Australian head of sales Tony Cramb said the company expected sales to remain strong in 2014.

“Toyota is targeting in excess of 200,000 sales for the tenth time and we expect another solid result for the industry with more than one million sales for the seventh time,” he said.