UK Car Research & Data
Data-led reports built from DVSA MOT records, DVLA registrations, Police.uk theft data, and the largest UK consumer reliability surveys. Updated annually with full methodology and source citations.
What Colour Are British Cars? 30 Years of Registrations
Britain's cars went monochrome. We read the recorded colour of 69.0 million UK vehicles by year of first registration: red and green collapsed, grey and white took over, and the fleet on the road is still more colourful than the showroom.
Nearside or Offside? What 91.6 Million MOT Defects Show
Across 91.6 million MOT defect lines the two sides of a British car are level — a 0.47% difference. The signal is in the mechanism: buckled road wheels are recorded 1.97x more often on the kerb side, while the driver's seat belt is damaged 2.33x more often on the other. Damage has a signature, and averaging destroys it.
The Real Mileage of UK Cars: Odometer Readings by Age and Model
What the odometer actually reads on British cars, from MOT test records rather than survey answers. Median, quartile and decile mileage for every vehicle age from 3 to 24 years, by fuel type and by model.
How Long Do UK Cars Actually Last? Survival Rates by Model
We tracked 47.8 million UK vehicles from first registration to their last MOT to measure how many survive each year. Half of a registration cohort has stopped being MOT-tested by 16.5 years. Full survival curve, plus survival by brand and model for the 2010 cohort.
The State of UK MOT 2026: pass rates, failure causes, advisory trends
Aggregated from DVSA records and our internal UK MOT dataset of ~9.6 million model-test samples across 56 makes and 500 models: pass rates by brand, top failure causes, advisory burden, and pass rate by vehicle age.
Most Reliable Cars in the UK 2026
An aggregate ranking of the most reliable car brands and models in the UK, built from five major 2025 owner-survey reliability indices and DVSA MOT data.