London - The Swedes and the French are patriotic, but most of the world simply gravitates towards Toyota.
These were just some of the findings in the latest automotive study by UK insurance company Veygo, which analysed Google search data from the last 12 months to find out which car brands are searched for the most in different parts of the world.
As you would have deduced from the amount of red on the infographic, Toyota is the most searched for car brand around the world, coming out tops in 57 of the 171 countries that were surveyed, commanding a global average of 7.8 million searches a month.
Unsurprisingly, Toyota was also the most searched for in South Africa, and the same goes for our neighbours Namibia and Mozambique, much of the African continent, the USA, Canada and Australia.
Interesting our land-locked neighbours Botswana and Zimbabwe seem to have loftier automotive ambitions, with BMW being the most searched for brands in those countries.
BMW also came second in the country rankings globally, dominating the search widgets in 25 countries, closely followed by its arch-rival Mercedes-Benz, at 23, while Honda and Ford were the runners up in outright numbers game, attracting 7 million and 6.4 million searches respectively.
Among other interesting results, Lamborghini came out tops in 12 countries, while seven nations, including Norway, the Netherlands, China and Hong Kong, were keener on Tesla.
Only five countries showed some kind of patriotism in their searches, with Volvo being the most searched for in Sweden, Renault in France, Mercedes-Benz in Germany, Perodua in Malaysia and Maruti in India.