What Classic Car
Discover the histories of Britain’s car makers, find classic car clubs, and use our free UK classic car directory of specialists, services and parts suppliers.
Car manufacturers A–Z
AC
One of Britain's oldest car makers, AC began in West Norwood, London, in 1901 and moved to Thames Ditton, Surrey, in 1911. It is best known for the…
Albion
Albion was founded in Glasgow in 1899 by two former Arrol-Johnston engineers. It built sturdy cars until 1915, but made its name with lorries and buses, built at…
Allard
Sydney Allard built big-engined trials and sports cars in Clapham, south London, from 1945. His J2 finished third at Le Mans in 1950 and was raced by Carroll…
Alvis
T. G. John founded Alvis in Coventry in 1919, and its 12/50 and Speed 20 made it one of Britain's most respected makers of quality sporting cars. Car…
Arash
Arash Motor Company of Newmarket, Suffolk, founded by Arash Farboud in 1999, builds supercars in tiny numbers, including the AF8 and the hybrid AF10 hypercar. Its earlier Farboud…
Argyll
By the mid-1900s Argyll was Scotland's biggest car maker, with a vast, palatial factory at Alexandria near Loch Lomond. It never filled the works, and after two collapses…
Ariel
Simon Saunders set up the company in 1991 to build the Atom, a lightweight exoskeleton sports car that began as a Coventry University student project. Based in Crewkerne,…
Armstrong Siddeley
A Coventry maker of dignified, well-engineered luxury cars, Armstrong Siddeley grew out of the same Siddeley-Deasy business that also built aircraft engines, and its cars shared some of…
Arrol-Johnston
One of Britain's very first car makers, founded in Glasgow in 1895 by the engineer George Johnston with backing from Sir William Arrol, builder of the Forth Bridge.…
Ashley
Ashley Laminates of Essex made glass-fibre bodies and chassis for home-built specials from 1955 to 1962, based on Austin Seven and Ford parts. Its 1172 body went on…
Aston Martin
Founded in London in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, Aston Martin grew from a small maker of sporting light cars into Britain's best-known builder of luxury…
Atalanta
Atalanta Motors of Staines built about 20 advanced, expensive sports cars between 1937 and 1939, with tubular chassis, all-round independent suspension and a choice of twin-cam four or…
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…
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…
BAC
Brothers Neill and Ian Briggs founded Briggs Automotive Company in Liverpool in 2009 to build the Mono, a single-seat, road-legal supercar launched in 2011. Its Mono R of…
Bean
Bean Cars, made by the Black Country ironfounders A. Harper Sons & Bean in Dudley and Coseley, briefly outsold Austin and Morris in the early 1920s. Car production…
Beardmore
Beardmore, the Clydeside shipbuilding and engineering giant, built cars and, from 1919 to 1966, the rugged Beardmore taxi, nicknamed "the Rolls-Royce of taxicabs". Production moved from Paisley to…
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,…
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