The grand tour · No. 001
The specialist sports segment took 13,618 of Britain's 2,020,520 new car registrations in 2025—one car in 148.
Cover story 8 minute read
Britain registered 2,020,520 new cars last year and 13,618 of them were sports cars. The SMMT's own segment tables show the affordable driver's car has not been replaced—it has been withdrawn, and the pleasure has moved to the used forecourt.
Briefing
“The road is not a gap between places. It is the place.
— The editor
Reports, rumours & roadside observations
Machines · First look
Caterham, Morgan, Ariel and what is left of Lotus: Britain's featherweight specialists, and the physics the mainstream industry stopped doing.
Continue readingCulture · After dark
One kind of car meet fills the NEC and pays wages. The other gets an injunction. Telling them apart is the whole argument.
Read storyWorkshop · Field notes
Battery and tyre faults still lead the call-out tables, yet only 3% of new cars carry a spare. What a useful boot actually holds, and what it costs.
Read storyTouring · Navigation
Britain has 246,500 miles of road and almost none of it is motorway. What obedient satnav use costs, and what a planned route returns.
Read storyMachines · Mechanical
The safety establishment has put it in writing: cars need switches you can find without looking. A Swedish stopwatch and a British simulator agree.
Read storyThe practical pages
The IMI's electric-vehicle technician forecast has been revised four times in five years. What the numbers say about the workshop floor.
The Institute of the Motor Industry counts 74,734 technicians holding an electric-vehicle qualification and projects a shortfall above 43,000 by 2035—a date that has moved four times in five years. Mae Foster reads the numbers, then offers three checks that still repay a quiet Saturday morning.
Plate 7B
People · The trade in numbers
A portrait in verified numbers of the 866,259 people who service, sell, repair and recover Britain's vehicles—and of the demographic squeeze the trade has publicly acknowledged.
Read the numbersFrom the back room