(April  7, 2011) SANTA MONICA, Calif. (PRNewswire) — TrueCar.com has released a refreshed demographic study based on car-buying behavior in 2010, examining gender differences in auto buying. TrueCar.com's study was based on over eight million retail purchases in 2010.

"The study shows that women car buyers are more cost-conscious and purchased fuel-efficient vehicles while male buyers were completely the opposite, purchasing vehicles that were either big and brawny, like a large truck, or chose a high-priced, high-performance vehicle," said Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com.

Some of the key findings of the TrueCar.com study include:

    • The brand with the highest percentage of retail sales to females in 2010 was MINI (47.9 percent), followed by Kia (46.8 percent), and Honda (46.0 percent) compared to 2009 when Saturn and Kia tied at 45.2 percent and MINI came in third at 45.0percent. There were fifteen brands with a female ratio over 40 percent in both 2009 and 2010.

    • The highest percentage of male buyers primarily purchased exotic brands. There were five brands in 2010 at 10 percent or less for retail sales to women, including Ferrari (6.4 percent), Lotus (7.2 percent), Lamborghini (7.4 percent), Maybach (8.0 percent), and Rolls Royce (9.3 percent) compared to 2009 when there were six brands; including Bugatti (0 percent), Maybach (3.7 percent), Ferrari (5.1 percent), Lamborghini (5.5 percent), Rolls Royce (8.0 percent), and Aston Martin (9.0 percent).

    • The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to females and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Volkswagen New Beetle, Kia Spectra, Nissan Rogue, Volkswagen Eos, Hyundai Entourage, Volvo S40, Jeep Compass, Honda CR-V, Nissan Sentra, and Hyundai Tucson.

    • The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to males and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Porsche 911, GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-Series, BMW M3, Ford Ranger, Toyota Tundra, Dodge Ram and Audi S5.

TrueCar.com also examined the most current market prices and listed discounts for all of the brands and specific models that were tracked with over 1,000 vehicle sales annually.  Below are the top ten brands with the highest male and female purchase ratios and their current discount percentages:

Below are the top ten models that had the highest percentage of male and female buyers (minimum 1,000 retail sales) and their current market discounts from MSRP: