What Classic Car
The story of British classic cars: their makers, designers, owners’ clubs and museums, all in one free guide.
- 132car manufacturers
- 43designers and coachbuilders
- 57owners' clubs
- 18museums
What you will find here
What Classic Car brings together the history of British car makers with the people, places and clubs that keep their cars on the road.
British car makers
Histories of more than 130 manufacturers, from household names to one-model wonders: when and where each was built, the cars they made, photographs and sources.
Designers and coachbuilders
The designers, engineers, coachbuilders and studios behind the cars, from Alec Issigonis and William Lyons to Vanden Plas and Pininfarina.
Clubs and museums
Find an owners’ club for your car and museums to visit. Every manufacturer’s page lists the clubs and museums connected with it.
Where they were built
Every manufacturer is placed on the map by its factory town, and each town links on to then-and-now photographs on GhostViewer.
Recently added car makers
Austin-Healey
Austin-Healey was born at the 1952 Motor Show, when Austin's Leonard Lord saw Donald Healey's Healey Hundred and agreed to build it as the Austin-Healey 100. The big…
Bristol
Bristol Cars began in 1945 as the car-making arm of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, building hand-made grand tourers to aircraft standards near Bristol. Famously private and selling from…
MG
MG grew out of Morris Garages, William Morris's Oxford dealership, where Cecil Kimber began selling tuned, specially bodied Morrises in the early 1920s. Built for half a century…
Riley
The Riley family's Coventry cycle business turned to cars at the end of the 1890s and became known for well-engineered, fine-handling sporting cars such as the Nine and…
Austin
Herbert Austin left Wolseley to found the Austin Motor Company at Longbridge, south-west of Birmingham, in 1905. The little Austin Seven of 1922 put Britain on wheels, Austin…
Morris
William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, turned an Oxford cycle and garage business into Britain's biggest car maker of the 1920s and '30s. Morris merged with Austin in 1952…
See where Britain's cars were built
One pin for every factory town. Click a pin to see the manufacturers built there, with links to their histories and to the town on GhostViewer.
Orange numbers show how many marques were built in a town; dark circles group nearby towns, so zoom in to open them. Click a pin for the details.
The people behind the cars
Designers, engineers, coachbuilders and studios, with their careers, notable designs and the places they worked.
Clubs, museums and specialists
Find an owners’ club for your car, a museum to visit, or a specialist for parts, servicing and restoration across the UK.
Run a club, a museum or a specialist business?
Add it to the directory so classic car owners can find you, and so it appears on the pages of the marques you cover.
About What Classic Car
What Classic Car is an independent guide to British classic cars. Each page is researched from published sources, which are listed on the page, and the photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and our own collection. Read more about the site.