Here are the top ships on the Community Hub as it stands:
Mercury Corsair Vulture 600i C8X Pisces Cutter Terrapin 890 Jump Eclipse Redeemer Arrow Gladiator Carrack 400i Mole Spirit
This isn’t exactly accurate, as things have to be tallied up from all sources.
New ship hype?
And yeah, the content was unique and CIG promoted it in several places. Plus they probably botted it to sell more of them :D