German carmaker Volkswagen's Tiguan is on track to top foreign brands in terms of sales in South Korea this year despite its brand image being tarnished by the worldwide fake emission scandal, industry data showed Thursday.

Its relatively cheap price and Volkswagen's ramped-up promotion efforts since September to tide over the crisis caused by the scandal attributed to the brisk sales.

According to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association and other industry data, Volkswagen Korea, the local unit of the German carmaker, sold a total of 8,269 units of the Tiguan 2.0 TDI through November this year.

This far outperformed the second-ranked A6 35 TDI of its luxury brand Audi, whose sales stood at 6,349 units.

In December, a daily average of 500-700 units of the Tiguan were sold, which would bring its total sales to near 9,000 units for this year, the data showed.

It would be the second straight year for the Tiguan to be the best-selling model among foreign brands in South Korea.

The Tiguan appeals to local customers with its relatively cheap price and better fuel efficiency compared to other foreign brands.

First brought to the Korean market in 2008, the Tiguan is the first Volkswagen model to exceed 20,000 units in cumulative sales here. It is on track to surpass the 30,000-mark this year.

The Tiguan's brand image was tarnished as it was found to have manipulated emission results in a test conducted by South Korea's environment ministry back in November.

Volkswagen was ordered to recall around 125,000 vehicles including the Tiguan that uses the EA189 engine. It should submit detailed recall plans to local authorities by Jan. 6. (Yonhap)