25 years of car ownership in the UK – Visualised

The British car market has seen some dramatic changes over the last 25 years. Walk down any UK road in 2019 and the brands and models you’ll see parked up in driveways are very different to 25 years ago.

To show just how much things have changed, we’ve visualised data from the DVLA on makes and models on UK roads between 1994 – 2018.

Take a look at the most popular brands over time:

For the specific models, the speed of change is even more apparent:

What to make of all this then?

🇺🇸US brand Ford remains the king of UK roads with its ubiquitous Focus and Fiesta models thriving with sustained numbers. However Escort, Mondeo and Sierra models saw quick declines over the period. Ford’s dominance is beginning to look shakey as competitors from Europe start to take a chunk of market share.

🇩🇪German car manufacturers including Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Audi made massive inroads with numbers on UK roads increasing by 156% over this period. It would seem that a growing reputation for build quality, efficiency and safety has convinced more and more Brits to go Deutch.

🇫🇷French brands Peugeot, Renault and Citroen have been consistent over the period, but in recent years that ‘Va Va Voom’ has all but dried up with numbers on UK roads declining by -30% between 2010 to 2018.

🇬🇧As for UK brands, Vauxhall leadership has remained strong, propped up by solid Corsa and Astra sales. The picture for Rover isn’t so pretty – it went from being the second most popular UK car brand in 1994 to total decimation after the turn of the millennium, before barely registering by 2005.

What other stories can you see?  Tweet us @motorwayhq and tell us your views.

Feel free to embed these graphics from Motorway on your website (with a link/ credit back to Motorway.co.uk who produced the graphs)

Credit for the source data to DVLA, 2018.