A weekend-long trip to London, England, got us thinking: what’s the greatest classic British car? For the sake of this argument we’ll say a classic is any car that’s at least 25-years old. Of course, you can make arguments for the original Mini, the Land Rover Defender, and even the Austin FX4, but there are plenty of other iconic British classics that have earned a spot in motoring history.
the xk/xke and the sprite/midget.
I’m kinda in love with MGB and Triumph Spitfire.
It’s hard to argue against those, they’re as quintessentially British as it gets.
TRIUMPH TR4A IRS
Just thinking of undervalued classics that were an everyman’s car what about the Austin/Morris 1100/300 and all its badge engineered stablemates and the Hillman Imp and its Singer badge engineered chums. Cars that were interesting from an engineering point of view and that moved British families in their masses over the years yet were flawed fatally in the quality of their construction so that in the end they left a bitter taste in the mouth of the memories.
I think both deserve better than they got.
I’m glad you brought up the Imp, that’s one that I had in mind. The Rover SD1, too.
Early ’60s Hillman Super Minx? Overhead cam, disc brakes, wagons as well as sedans, exported all over the place, even fins and chrome headlight bezels.
Jaguar MK IX. LHD, manual gearing, sunroof, overdrive. That’s my dream car. MK VII/VIII might do as well, but the IX has disc brakes all around and more power.
Looong pause. Then maybe a Rover P6? V8 3500, of course. Well, if somebody would give me a Triumph Dolomite, I’d probably keep it, as well…