We tend to associate different countries with specific characteristics when it comes to their automotive output. Italian marques are temperamental yet imbued with passion, while Japanese cars tend to be meticulously engineered and faultlessly reliable.
When it comes to British cars, terms like ‘luxury’ and ‘craftsmanship’ often spring to mind. Walk around the Morgan Motor Company factory in Worcestershire, and the air throbs with the din of manual assembly. Enter a Rolls-Royce showroom, and the aroma of warm leather wraps around you like a duvet. The Brits may have shed many mainstream marques throughout the 20th century, but the best British car brands like Bentley and Jaguar remain peerlessly evocative – the very distillation of luxury living.
While British luxury car brands blaze a trail for hand-crafted quality, there are also some more mainstream marques among the top UK car brands. We’ve highlighted the 11 most significant English car names, from Aston Martin to Vauxhall, explaining why they matter, and what they currently market.
Why you can trust Luxe Digital? As well as inviting a British motoring writer to round up the best British luxury car brands, we’ve also plunged into the history books to ensure diminished marques like MG receive the retrospective credit they deserve. We’ve left out the many British cars from marques no longer trading, including the sadly missed Rover, Triumph, and Riley.
Rolls-Royce
Bentley aficionados might protest, but Rolls-Royce has become a proprietary eponym for being market-leading or peerless. Today’s models have sacrificed some of the pillowy ride and timbered tradition of old, yet every Rolls-Royce interaction remains an occasion to savor.
Purists might question the Cullinan SUV, but it’s every bit as exquisite inside as the four-door Ghost and Phantom sedans, while comprehensively outselling them. The Spectre is marketed as the world’s first ultra-luxury electric super-coupe – a brief it fulfills admirably.
| Founders: | Charles Rolls and Henry Royce |
| Founded in: | 1906 |
| Types of car: | Sedan, coupe, SUV |
| Best-selling car: | Cullinan |
| Parent company: | BMW Group |
Bentley
Despite being Rolls-Royce’s arch-rival, Bentley has followed a similar path of building sedans, SUVs and coupes, all blending opulent interiors with pugnacious performance. The Continental GT and drop top GTC are perhaps the ultimate grand tourers, while there’s an extended wheelbase Bentayga if the standard model isn’t vast enough.
Then there’s the Flying Spur. A direct descendent of old Bentley sedans like the Mulsanne, it’s capped by a six-liter W12 engine and an interior that demonstrates why British cars still set global standards for quality.
| Founders: | Walter Owen Bentley |
| Founded in: | 1919 |
| Types of car: | Sedan, coupe, SUV |
| Best-selling car: | Bentayga |
| Parent company: | Volkswagen |
Land Rover
Put aside memories of old farm-based Defenders with trim hanging off – few marques do luxury as well as Land Rover. The Range Rover is one of the finest British luxury car brands, with various sub-brands (Evoque, Velar, Sport) offering different takes on unburstable mechanicals and opulent interiors.
The Land Rover side of the family is more rugged but no less over-engineered, and the wildly popular new Defender is a case study in combining heritage and tradition with the latest technology and manufacturing innovations.
| Founders: | Rover Car Company |
| Founded in: | 1948 |
| Types of car: | SUVs, 4x4s |
| Best-selling car: | Defender |
| Parent company: | Jaguar Land Rover |
Jaguar
Land Rover’s sister brand shares its sibling’s innovative mechanicals, while leaning more towards affordable luxury. Jaguar still markets the evergreen XF sedan and the F-Type sports car, alongside a trilogy of SUVs. Each has an interior intertwining tradition and modernity to impressive effect.
Like many of the marques in this list, Jaguar’s reputation was forged on racetracks and twisting Alpine roads. Every Jag is a natural driver’s car, while the i-PACE electric SUV previews the marque’s future direction of travel.
| Founders: | William Lyons |
| Founded in: | 1935 |
| Types of car: | Sedan, SUV, sports car |
| Best-selling car: | F-Pace |
| Parent company: | Jaguar Land Rover |
Aston Martin
Your correspondent began his career in an Aston Martin showroom, greeted on winter mornings by the burble of V8 and V12 engines defrosting on the forecourt. This was in the era when the Lagonda name still periodically resurfaced, though it’s largely been dormant since the 1980s.
Today’s Astons are exquisitely upgraded takes on those trailblazing Millennial models, with obvious DNA in the latest generation Vantage and DBS. The DB12 is James Bond-worthy, and there’s even an SUV – the sumptuous yet thunderous DBX707.
| Founders: | Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford |
| Founded in: | 1913 |
| Types of car: | Supercar, hypercar, SUV |
| Best-selling car: | DBX |
| Parent company: | Aston Martin Lagonda |
Lotus
Mention Colin Chapman to any British car-lover over the age of 40, and a sage nod will be returned. Chapman was a genius who blazed a trail in Formula One before directing his engineering savvy towards lightweight Lotus roadsters.
That philosophy has endured, with fragile yet nerve-tingling cars like the 340R and Exige giving way to today’s Eletre SUV, Emeya sedan, Emira supercar, and Evija hypercar. The Lotus range has never been so diverse, dynamic – or downright thrilling.
| Founders: | Colin Chapman |
| Founded in: | 1952 |
| Types of car: | SUV, sedan, supercar, hypercar |
| Best-selling car: | Emira |
| Parent company: | Zhejiang Geely |
McLaren
McLaren is another British marque to have translated Formula One success into passenger car production, with Ron Dennis reprising Colin Chapman’s pursuit of engineering perfection. The first McLaren was 1992’s F1 hypercar, decades before modern-day McLaren Automotive’s creation in 2010.
Pass a McLaren showroom anywhere from Dubai to Dallas, and its forecourt will bristle with cars that look menacing even while parked. They’re equally spectacular inside, with blistering performance accompanied by a noise resembling Satan standing on a Lego brick. Faint hearts need not apply.
| Founders: | Ron Dennis |
| Founded in: | 2010 |
| Types of car: | Supercar, hypercar |
| Best-selling car: | 750S |
| Parent company: | McLaren Group |
Morgan
A niche coachbuilder of open-topped cars for owners who’d find a Lotus too common, Morgan celebrates its 115th anniversary in 2024. Hand-crafted dependability is etched into the marque’s DNA, and almost 90 percent of all Morgans ever manufactured remain in service.
Variations of its iconic Plus have been sold for sixty years, while the mean and roofless Super 3 has two wheels at the front and one at the back. Buyers are offered endless customization and a near-infinite color palette, but ten-year waiting lists aren’t unheard of.
| Founders: | Henry Morgan |
| Founded in: | 1909 |
| Types of car: | Roadsters |
| Best-selling car: | Plus Four |
| Parent company: | Owned by the Morgan family |
Vauxhall
As one of the UK’s few surviving volume marques, Vauxhall has enjoyed many highs and lows, leading the field of top UK car brands in terms of sales. Its range has fluctuated from drab to innovative and back – today’s Corsa subcompact is among Britain’s best-selling cars, while the evergreen Astra has been the quintessential family hatchback for forty years.
Despite being part of the generic Stellantis empire, Vauxhall occasionally goes off-piste; an enduring relationship with Lotus spawned the glorious 1980s Lotus Carlton and the thrill-seeking Noughties VX220 roadster.
| Founders: | Alexander Wilson |
| Founded in: | 1857 |
| Types of car: | Hatchback, crossover |
| Best-selling car: | Corsa |
| Parent company: | Stellantis |
MINI
When BMW’s ownership of Rover fell apart around the Millennium, the one positive outcome was the retention of the MINI brand. Ingenious design (Union Jack taillights and roofs) and equally clever marketing (the “MINI adventure” ad campaign) reaffirmed Britain’s love affair with its homegrown equivalent of Italy’s Fiat 500 or France’s Citroën 2CV.
It’s easy to forget that the modern MINI is a fine car to drive, reprising its iconic ancestor’s kart-like handling without reenacting its appalling ride. MINIs come in numerous flavors, including open-top, hatchback, SUV and six-door Clubman.
| Founders: | Austin Motor Company |
| Founded in: | 1959 |
| Best-selling car: | Cooper SE |
| Parent company: | BMW |
MG
We include MG in this list more for its heritage than for anything this Chinese-owned marque has achieved since Nanjing Automobile bought the name twenty years ago. Few Brits regard MGs as British cars nowadays, and its current range of hatchbacks and EVs is underwhelming at best.
MGs used to be hairy-chested roadsters, all rear-drive oversteer, and roadside repairs. Its fate was sealed when the first-generation Mazda MX-5 combined two-seater thrills with faultless reliability. Today, reliability is one of MG’s few selling points.
| Founders: | Cecil Kimber |
| Founded in: | 1930 |
| Types of car: | Hatchbacks, EVs |
| Best-selling car: | HS |
| Parent company: | SAIC Motor Corporation Limited |
Frequently asked questions about British car brands
There’s no easy answer to this, since half a dozen marques could claim to make the finest British cars. For our money, Morgan’s hand-crafted and entirely personalized construction process leaves its mass-produced compatriots trailing.
Many British luxury car brands still manufacture in the south or Midlands of England. Land Rover builds the Range Rover, Sport and Velar in Birmingham, where Jaguars are also constructed. Every Morgan is assembled in Malvern, MINIs come from Oxford, Lotus models hail from Norfolk, Aston Martins come from Warwickshire, and McLarens are manufactured entirely in Woking.
The most expensive British car currently on sale is the Rolls-Royce Phantom, with prices starting at around $493,000 and soaring past $650,000 depending on the extent of customization requested.
Rolls-Royce continues to design and manufacture British cars at their historic Goodwood site in West Sussex, near co-founder Henry Royce’s old home
