These are the 50 greatest British cars ever made

Imagine running into someone scary down a dark alleyway, only for them to tell you you’re looking especially pleasant today and have you lost some weight? This is the M600. With 650bhp and no electronic assists, you might rightly anticipate a fight on your hands. In fact, the sheer poise of the thing makes it so much friendlier than you’d expect. Within reason, of course. Push its buttons, and it'll bite.

Widely recognised as the first British sports car, the 1911 Prince Henry’s lightweight construction and revvy 20hp four cylinder engine enabled it to reach speeds of over 100mph. Being a hot Vauxhall, one assumes it was difficult to find used examples in the 20s that hadn’t been fitted with cheap coilovers and a Nürburgring bootlid decal.

The Solihull Daytona. Its gorgeous, Ferrari-inspired bodywork and smooth V8 power offered such promise, but it was marred by the usual British Leyland gremlins: shonky build quality and dodgy electrics. Nonetheless, a deeply desirable object - and one that encapsulates BL at its best and worst. 

Great performance Jags balance sophistication with violence. But at first glance the P8, with its cheese grater for a face and scaffolding in place of rear seats, appeared to have flipped the bird at sophistication and gone a bit mad. That’s what made it so wonderfully surprising. Yes, the powerplant was feral - but when shown a bumpy, broken British B-road, the chassis breathed and flowed with the surface in that unmistakably Jaguar way. A silly, spellbinding thing.

The first British economy car, the dinky Seven brought motoring to the masses with its stonkingly reasonable price tag of 135 quid - about £9,900 in today’s money. It was only slightly faster and more luxurious than a horse, but far less prone to stealing your carrots. 

As feats of engineering, McLarens are always impressive. But as supercars, they can sometimes leave you a little cold in your tingly bits. Not this one. Woking’s answer to the 458 Speciale was a playful car - as happy vaporising its tyres for bants as it was kissing apexes with surgical precision. 

Ten years and 200 units on, BAC continues to fly in the face of that most British of boutique car brand traditions: failing. Thank goodness, because there is nothing quite like the Mono. This is the most focused driving experience you can legally have on the road - and if anyone disagrees, just fire your rocket launcher at them. 

Imagine creating the first British car to sell over a million units, a car as synonymous with mid-20th century Britain as fedoras and bad teeth, and it isn’t even your most successful work. Now you know how it feels to be Sir Alec Issigonis, father of the Morris Minor and, subsequently, the Mini. The Moggy may never have given the Italian rozzers the runabout on the roof of a Fiat factory, but it paved the way for what followed with its clever use of space, reliability, repairability and excellent handling. 

A British muscle car with elegant Italian bodywork and a burbling American V8, adorned with the coolest name - and most striking piece of glass - of any car, ever. Shame about the pants build quality: you can track Interceptor drivers simply by following the trail of discarded rusty metal bits. But when occasionally in one piece and working as it should, it was special. 

In truth, all the Aeromax really did was fix the Aero 8’s squinty face, add a hardtop and pinch some taillights off an old Lancia. But the combined effect is so jaw-dropping, it would still be in the running for a place on our leaderboard if it was a static sculpture. That it comes with a snarling BMW V8 is merely a cherry on top. 

Jag’s maiden EV was utterly groundbreaking. It was the first properly desirable, luxury electric car, and the first EV that you could describe as good to drive while holding a straight face. It reminded the world that Jag isn’t just a fuddy duddy nostalgia act - on its day, it can be a proper disruptor. Does anyone know what they’re planning for their next EV? We’ve not heard anything online. 

“Grandpa, what do you mean it wasn’t always a crossover SUV that looks like an over-inflated Polestar 2?” That’s right, kiddies. Once, the Capri was so much more. Few cars in history have struck the balance between attainable and aspirational as beautifully as “The car you always promised yourself”. 

As a road car, it was hopeless - if you want luggage space, you’d better wear trousers with pockets. As a supercar, its holey features lacked desirability. But purely as a vessel for experiencing the freaky ways we can manipulate air to the benefit of cornering, the Senna knew no equal. It was flawed, uncompromising and utterly astonishing - just like the chap it was named after. 

The Land Rover Labubu. Aided by razor sharp styling and the official blessing of Her Holiness, Posh Spice, the baby Rangie was the must have fashion accessory of summer 2011. It was an absolute slam dunk for JLR, selling in huge numbers and alleviating the slight waft of Old Spice by adding some much needed youth to the customer base. We do not speak of the convertible.

TVR: the perfect stereotype of a British car brand. The only time it wasn’t producing thrilling, deeply unreliable sports cars was when it was filing for bankruptcy - and it was rarely producing cars. Still, the creations that did occasionally burble out of the factory gates between crises were almost always special. The 2008 Sagaris was a fire-breathing monster  with a design seemingly informed by a committee of caffeinated 11 year-old boys up way past their bedtime. But it also boasted a degree of refinement and usability that the brand had never before managed. 

Exactly what on Earth possessed the brass at Vauxhall to bolt a couple of Garrett turbos to its executive saloon, then send it to Colin Chapman for a tickle, all at a time when super-saloons were still a fairly rogue concept, we do not know, but gosh, we’re glad they did. The Carlton’s staggering 176mph top speed is extraordinary today, but in the 90s it was downright obscene. People tried to have it banned. Which of course, only added to its legend.

The quintessential TVR. It was dainty, it was charming, and it wanted to hurt you. With 340bhp from its Rover V8 and weighing a little over a tonne, suffice to say the Griff did some heavy lifting in adding to TVR drivers’ reputation for involuntarily finding themselves up trees. 

Look up the word 'dignified' in the dictionary and you won’t find a picture of one of these. But only because it’s far too dignified to brag about such things, don’t you know. Regarded by many as peak Jag, the XJ-6 defined luxury motoring for decades, elegantly embodying Jag’s core principles: grace, space and pace. 

One of countless automotive masterpieces penned by perennial nominee for the fictional “Car designer you’d most like to have a beer with” award, Ian Callum. In Jaguar terms, it’s perhaps his most important. The F-Type was the feline face of modern Jag’s golden era and, with engine options ranging from a fizzy four pot to a volcanic V8, it offered a genuinely worthy alternative to the Boxster and Cayman, as well as their big brother 911.  

There are some British icons that only we Brits give a hoot about. Like Noble. Or Robbie Williams. But by virtue of its ability to go anywhere, the Discovery became a legend everywhere. There are schools of thought that global coolness levels may never again exceed those reached during the heyday of the Sandglow yellow, fag brand liveried, Camel Trophy Series 1s.

As far as we’re concerned, the fact that its story is one of compromise, controversy and near-disaster only further qualifies it as a British motoring legend - it’s really the only way we know how to do things here. The XJ220 may have lost its all wheel-drive system and half of its cylinders on its fraught journey to production, but the end result nonetheless achieved what it set out to. Namely, becoming the fastest road car the world had ever seen - and one of the all-time bedroom wall poster hypercars. 

From Bathurst to BTCC, Its crushing dominance of Touring Car series around the globe is more than sufficient to qualify the Sierra Cossie as a bona fide British legend. But the icing on the cake was the fact that you could stroll into a Ford dealership at the time, and leave with essentially the exact race car you’d just watched on telly, flying through Paddock hill on two wheels - just with number plates and headlights. A raw, tuneable, blue collar hero.

The true mastery of this long-running sports car isn’t just in how authentically it delivers analogue, old timey thrills. It’s also in how Morgan constantly moves it along with the times, updating it just enough to ensure it’s never reduced to a mere novelty. The latest and greatest Plus Four is testament to that balancing act, offering more room, refinement and liveability than ever before while still providing a satisfying blast from the past.

A collection of unfathomable numbers encased in breathtaking, hand-beaten aluminium bodywork. The 120mph top speed after which it was named made it the world’s fastest car, though legend has it you could clear 130 if you put your mind to it. One modified example cleared 170. In 1953. Its endurance was equally staggering: one example ran for 24 hours non-stop at an average speed of 100mph, to showcase the durability of its engineering. There are modern supercars that would have more than a few bits fall off if they tried replicating that feat.

If you’re reading this and you were born in the 90s, what colour was your grandpa’s one? Not fast or flashy, but brilliantly balanced, affordable and moddable, the MGB is the quintessential everyman’s British sports car.

The Roller designed with the radical consideration that his lordship the owner might want to give Parker the day off and drive the thing himself now and then. That’s not to say Rolls abandoned rear comfort and made it all stiff and pointy - it just made the driving experience exquisite in the front and back. In that sense, the Silver Shadow was the blueprint for every Rolls Royce that followed. 50 years on, it still oozes class in a way little else can. 

Reinventing an icon ain’t easy. It can’t be too different from the original or you’ll start a riot, but it must move the game forward or you’ll be called lazy. The new Defender nailed it, retaining the essence of the loveable garden shed it succeeded, while exponentially improving refinement. We can think of other recent revamps that could learn from this. One of them rhymes with Shmord Shmapri.

The passion project of wind whisperer and Aston Martin F1 team boss, Adrian Newey. So naturally, it has Venturi tunnels big enough to play Sardines in. Trust us, we’ve checked in the name of journalism. There never has - and surely never will - be a more focused, single-minded hypercar. That it manages to be beautiful at the same time is just a bonus.  

Just how much Vaseline was required to cram that V12 into its nose, we’ll never know - the end result was so sublime we didn’t bother asking. But it’s the standard V8 version of the baby Aston we’re here to celebrate, for providing a taste of the supercar highlife at sports car prices. It sounded like a proper Aston and looked the business parked on double yellows outside Harrods. It in no way felt like a diluted expression of the brand, yet you didn’t need a second mortgage to own one.  

We’re awfully good at restrained, understated luxury here in Blighty. But we can also do this. The Brooklands is a 5.4-metre long, two door, wood and chrome monument to excess with 774lb ft of torque. This is a statement car - and the statement is “I’m rich”. It does, simply because it can. It’s an absurd, villainous car for absurd, villainous people - and it’s utterly fantastic.

“Isn’t that American?” We hear you ask. In fact, Henry Ford II’s big fat middle finger to Enzo was built in Slough. Designed to humiliate Ferrari at Le Mans after he publicly snubbed Ford’s proposed acquisition at the eleventh hour, the GT40 won four years in a row, locking out the podium in 1966. We can only aspire to such levels of pettiness.  

Gordon Murray copies his own homework and makes the best ever driver’s car. Again. Our ears are still ringing from 12,000rpm and we hope they never stop. The T.50 is what we’d present to aliens as the pinnacle of combustion powered vehicles - and it’s made in Surrey. If that doesn’t make you feel patriotic, nothing will.

A car so perfectly balanced it inspired an entire generation of Japanese engineers to go and have a crack themselves. MX-5 and MR2 distilled the formula, but Chapman’s dainty flyweight wrote it. A potent reminder of what truly matters in a performance car - and what doesn’t. Also of how much shorter people used to be. 

Trying to rank a pre-war brute among mostly modern stuff is a facile task - like comparing a present day footballer who goes to bed in cryo recovery pyjamas to an old school legend who got by on a diet of roast beef and cigarettes. All we know is the Blower has to be somewhere near the top. With its supercharged, 4.5-litre powerplant, it was a belligerent statement of British engineering might, at a time when that sort of thing really, really mattered. 

Group A’s working class hero. For the price of a well specced, mild mannered 3 Series, the Cossie offered a thuggish, boosty hit of rally-bred performance, plus a wing that could double as an additional dining table when you had guests round. We reckon it’s peak fast Ford. 

The engineers at Rolls Royce would be within their rights to feel mildly ticked off that they spent all those years honing the combustion engine to a degree of smoothness whereby a coin can be balanced on it while idling, only for an infinitely simpler, far smoother powertrain to spring forth. But the fact is, electric power only further elevates the experience of that patented magic carpet ride, making this the quietest, most refined Rolls Royce - and therefore car - ever made.  

The car that single-handedly dragged Aston out of the automotive middle ages and into the 21st century. Whereas the DB7 whiffed of Ford’s parts bin, the DB9 sat on an innovative, all-new aluminium platform. It was refined, comfortable and felt every bit the six figure supercar it was. Above all else, it was devastatingly beautiful - to look at and listen to. It’s the absolute epitome of a 21st century Aston Martin. 

Ah, VW Group in the 2000s. A time before Dieselgate, a time of good vibes, juicy budgets and a “more is more” approach to cylinders. In ‘03, somewhere between building the world’s fastest supercar and jamming a V6 into a Golf, Mr Piech also found time to apply some proper German engineering rigour to Bentley, who until then had been cheerfully loitering somewhere in the 1950s. The Conti was the result. It was always mighty, but through 20 years of sharpening, it’s evolved into something truly magnificent. One of the last - and all-time greatest - continent crushing, big capacity GTs.

There are fast cars, there are beautiful cars, and there are cars that transcend the automotive realm and become an icon of popular culture. Here’s one that’s all the above. The spy who drove it (sounds like a crap Bond film) was a sophisticated, powerful Brit in a beautifully tailored Italian suit - you’d struggle to find a better metaphor for the DB5. 

Happiest when zipping along a damp, twisty B-road, effortlessly squeezing past oncoming Range Rovers and cocking its inside rear wheel on apexes. There is simply no car better suited to extracting maximum joy from our bumpy old lanes than a fast Fiesta - because nothing else is so specifically designed to do so. The Mk6 showed promise, the Mk7 and 8 are nothing short of hot hatch perfection. 

You’ll be picking bugs out of your teeth and bits of gravel out of your forehead for weeks. On boost, you’ll genuinely wonder if the intake is about to suck your brain out through your ear canal, like a carnivorous Noo Noo. Yep, the Atom is a study in lightness and simplicity so extreme, even Colin Chapman might look at it and go “Blimey lads, reign it in a bit”. And it’s utterly addictive. A visceral, intoxicating hit of pure driving pleasure that’s been giving million pound hypercars the runaround for 25 years now. 

Today, we mostly use hybrid systems for fuel efficiency, and to keep bees alive longer. The P1 cared not for bees. It deployed its electric power purely to add further violence to its already savage twin-turbo V8. Of the holy trinity, there was a polish to the other two, whereas the McLaren felt like something that escaped the factory when no one was looking. A proper skunkworks special that set a new benchmark for hypercars and awakened the world to the fearsome performance potential of hybrid power. 

True to British sports car heritage, Lotus faced looming financial ruin in the 90s. Then this came along with its revolutionary construction, built around an aluminium tub, and from then on Lotus was… still skint. Even so, what a thing. The S1 Elise was the purest expression of lightweight driving since the original Elan. No power steering, no servo-assisted brakes, just incredible feedback and a chassis so intuitive it felt like an extension of your own nervous system. Flipping glorious.

Rarely in history has British automotive been this far ahead of the pack. Having wiped the floor with its rivals at Le Mans for three years running, Jag took the bones of its dominant D-Type and applied them to a road car. The result was a spaceship capable of 150mph at a time when rivals were wheezing to hit three figures. Still startlingly fast today - and forever a valid contender for the crown of “most beautiful car ever made”. 

For almost one hundred years, the Phantom has resided in a category of one. “Car” is an inadequate word. This is a mobile private island, for folks who probably have one of those too. A cocoon of luxury and tranquility in which you can glide through the world while being totally disconnected from it. All superlatives fall short - as do all rivals. Best generation? Take your pick. We’ll always have a soft spot for the BMW-engineered VII, but objectively, the best Phantom is always the latest one.

For decades it’s conquered the most inhospitable corners of the globe, cementing itself as the most dependable off-roader ever built. No frills, just rugged usefulness. The Land Rover Defender is “Keep calm and carry on” on wheels. Cars or otherwise, this is one of Britain’s most significant contributions to the world.

As with the Landie, its magnificence is evidenced by the fact it’s hardly changed in over half a century. The Caterham speaks a simple truth: driving pleasure isn’t that complicated. It’s not about big power, high speed, or ego-tickling electronic aids. It’s about sensation. And when you shift that glorious, snickety box down a gear in a Seven and watch your inside front wheel onto the apex, while vibrations through your backside politely inform you that you’re just starting to dance with the limits of the grip at the rear, you want for nothing more. With every passing year, its teachings only become more poignant.

At the very least, Sir Alec Issigonis’ masterpiece redefined the compact segment - but it wouldn’t be blowing smoke up his behind to say it revolutionised the motorcar. The Mini’s combination of boxy bodywork, tiny wheels pushed to the extremities and a transverse engine arrangement enabled incredible passenger space from a tiny package, while the stubby wheelbase and miniscule weight enabled extraordinary handling. Its impact on automotive design and engineering can’t be overstated. Or on movie car chases, for that matter.

Before it, SUVs were rugged workhorses. The Rangie added a dash of luxury to the recipe and created something completely new. 

It’s far from perfect - reliability is infamously wibbly and they get nicked more often than bags for life. But the sheer unflappability of the thing - and the pleasure of knowing you’re in the right car for literally anything that could ever possibly happen - has, for half a century, made the Range Rover the default car choice for just about anyone lucky enough to be able to afford one.

240mph but spacious inside with extraordinary visibility and seating for three. 0-200mph in 28 seconds but fairly unintimidating to drive, thanks to supple suspension and compact dimensions. 12 years as the world’s fastest car, yet impossible to appreciate purely through numbers. Because the F1’s masterstroke wasn’t just its otherworldly performance - it was the way it equipped you, the driver, with the confidence to use and enjoy it. The only thing really detracting from that today would be the nagging notion that there are countries you’ve heard of whose GDP is less than its value. That just what happens when you create the greatest symphony of engineering and aerodynamics the world has ever known. Only when its creator made the same car 20 years later has anything ever come close.