SANTA MONICA, Calif. -

Apparently, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus might not just be the title of the famous book by John Gray about the relationships between men and women.

The phrase could actually be apt to describe gender differences when it comes to car-buying behavior. In fact, TrueCar.com analyzed more than 8 million vehicle purchases last year and found that men tended to lean toward “big and brawny” or “high-priced, high-performance” models, while women made decisions with their wallet and fuel economy in mind.

“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,” commented Jesse Toprak, TrueCar’s vice president of industry trends and insights.

Which specific brands and vehicles better drew each respective gender?

According to TrueCar, Mini had the highest proportion of female sales, as 47.9 percent of its 2010 sales went to women. Kia was next at 46.8 percent, followed by Honda at 46 percent. Nissan was in fourth (45.5 percent) and Subaru was in fifth (45 percent).

Meanwhile, the brand with the highest proportion of male buyers was Ferrari, with 93.6 percent of its sales last year going to men. Another exotic brand, Maserati, came in second (84.4 percent), followed by Porsche at 80.3 percent. GMC was next on the list at 74.3 percent, with luxury brand Jaguar (73 percent) rounding out the top five.

On an individual model level, the most female-dominated vehicle was the Volkswagen New Beetle. TrueCar found that 60.6 percent of its 2010 buyers were women. It was followed by the Nissan Rogue (56.3 percent), and Volkswagen Eos (55.3 percent). Fourth on the list was the Volvo S40 (54.5 percent) followed by the Jeep Compass (54.3 percent).

The most male-dominated model was the Porsche 911, which saw close to 88 percent of its vehicles purchased by men in 2010. Next was the GMC Sierra (87.4 percent) with the Chevrolet Corvette in third (86.7 percent) and the Chevrolet Silverado (86.3 percent) in fourth. Rounding out the top five was the Ford F-Series (86.3 percent).