Need a bit of help deciding what car to buy next? If so, you’re going to love this top 50 rundown of the best British cars ever, as decided upon by expert judges like the team from Auto Express magazine, CEO of McLaren Mike Flewitt, president of the AA Edmund King, CEO of Aston Martin Andy Palmer and director of BMW Ian Robertson, among others.
Auto Express decided to put the list together to find out the best British-built car of all time, accounting for unbeatable performance, ground-breaking design and account sales success. And what do you think claimed the number one spot?
Well, we can tell you that the Mini has pipped the rest of the bunch to the post, with praise heaped upon it for being an “icon of British innovation, a fashion accessory and a motorsport hero that also brought affordable motoring to the masses”.
The Mini itself was first launched in 1959 after designer Alec Issigonis was tasked by the bosses at BMC to make a car smaller than three metres that could fit a family of four inside. The result was the Mini, with ten inch wheels used to make more room inside, the gearbox positioned in the engine’s sump and the powerplant mounted in such a way that the cylinders could be lined up sideways across the vehicle.
Apparently, however, Brits weren’t as enamoured with the car at first as they certainly are now and it wasn’t until racing drivers and celebrities started gadding about in them that it started becoming really popular. From there, the Mini Cooper was born, thanks to racing driver John Cooper who saw its potential in the motorsport arena.
Edmund King of the AA said: “There’s only one choice for the top spot: the Mini. It’s one of the most influential cars ever built and lasted for decades with the design barely changed.”
The rest of the vehicles that make up the top ten were the Lotus Elise, the Ford Escort MK1, the Caterham/Lotus Seven, the Ford GT40, the Range Rover Mk1, the McLaren F1, the Aston Martin DB5, the Land Rover Series/Defender and the Jaguar E-Type.
However, while the Mini might well have come top of this particular list – and no doubt it’s a well-deserved honour – it seems as though where actual drivers are concerned, there’s another brand that’s currying favour at the moment.
New research from The Hatchbag Company has just revealed that Ford is the most popular make of car in the UK, with nearly 4.5 million vehicles out there at the moment, which is just over 14 per cent of the market. Other hugely popular cars include Vauxhall, Volkswagen and Peugeot, so if you are in the market for a new vehicle why don’t you see just why these cars are so well liked?
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