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
- 170directory listings
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
Dennis
Dennis Brothers of Guildford began by making bicycles in 1895 and became famous for fire engines, buses and dustcarts, all built to order and more strongly than mass-produced…
AEC
AEC (Associated Equipment Company) built London's buses, from the B-type to the Routemaster, and was Britain's biggest wartime lorry maker. Started in 1912 by the Underground Group, it…
Karrier
Karrier was a Huddersfield maker of municipal vehicles, light lorries and trolleybuses from 1908. It gave Britain the Cob "mechanical horse" and the Ro-Railer, and after being bought…
Bedford
Bedford Vehicles was set up by Vauxhall in 1931 to build lorries, vans and buses, and grew into one of Britain's leading commercial vehicle brands. The wartime MW…
Commer
Commer, founded in Luton in 1905 as Commercial Cars Ltd, was one of Britain's first specialist commercial-vehicle makers. Bought by Humber in 1926 and so by the Rootes…
Riversimple
Riversimple, founded by former motorsport engineer Hugo Spowers in 2001 and now based in Llandrindod Wells, Wales, develops lightweight hydrogen fuel-cell cars. Its two-seat Rasa has been tested…
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.
James Young
James Young of Bromley built high-quality carriages and, from 1908, car bodies. Bought by Rolls-Royce dealer Jack Barclay in 1937, it built on Bentley and Rolls-Royce chassis until…
E. D. Abbott
Abbott of Farnham built bodies from 1929 to 1972, much of it under contract to car makers. It built the Lagonda Rapier bodies from 1934, coupes for Sunbeam-Talbot…
Park Ward
Park Ward was a coachbuilder at Willesden in north London, founded in 1919. Closely tied to Bentley and then Rolls-Royce, it built all-steel bodies from 1936, was bought…
Jensen (bodybuilders)
Before and beside its own cars, Jensen of West Bromwich built bodies for other makers: Wolseley Hornet Specials, the Austin A40 Sports and the bodies of the Austin-Healey…
Keith Duckworth
Keith Duckworth of Blackburn designed the Cosworth DFV, the Formula One engine that first won at Zandvoort in 1967 and won races for years afterwards. He co-founded Cosworth…
David Bache
David Bache was Rover's first stylist and shaped the P5, the P6 and the SD1, and had a hand in the Range Rover and the Land Rover Series…
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.