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
Dutton
Dutton Cars of Worthing, founded by Tim Dutton-Woolley in 1970, was by number of kits sold the largest kit-car maker in the world. Its Escort-based Phaeton roadster and…
Trojan
Trojan built some of Britain's most eccentric cars: the solid-tyred, two-stroke Trojan Utility Car of the 1920s, sold with the slogan "Can you afford to walk?". The Croydon…
Straker-Squire
Straker-Squire of Bristol built steam wagons, buses and fast, well-made cars. By 1909 its Fishponds works supplied 70% of London's buses. After the First World War car production…
Belsize
Belsize Motors of Clayton, Manchester, grew out of Marshall & Company, probably Manchester's first car maker. Before the First World War it employed 1,200 people and built cars,…
Swift
Swift of Coventry grew from James Starley's Coventry Sewing Machine Company, the cradle of the city's cycle industry, and built cars from 1900 until 1931, when the little…
Calthorpe
Calthorpe of Birmingham made quality light cars, as well as bicycles and motorcycles, from 1904. Its 10 hp Minor was admired as a large car in miniature, but…
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.