Now's A Great Time For British Performance Car Brands

For the UK’s major producers of fast, shouty cars, business appears to be booming.

First off, let’s take a look at McLaren. Woking just announced it sold a record 3340 cars in 2017, just pipping its 2016 effort of 3286 units. 2119 cars Sports Series machines (540C, 570S etc) were sold, while Super Series (650S, 720S) motors accounted for 1221 of the total.

Over at Aston Martin, the company experienced record year-on-year growth of 58 per cent in 2017. Gaydon sold more than 5000 cars (5117 in total) for the first time since 2008, mostly thanks to the new DB11 (below). With the new Vantage now on sale, the firm will no doubt beat that number in 2018.

Caterham is yet to reveal complete 2017 sales figures, but it announced last October that it had already surpassed its 2016 600+ record with two months to spare. Not bad.

Again, Lotus hasn’t given a 2017 figure, but last summer Hethel reported that it was finally back in the black with a £2 million profit for the previous fiscal year. The company’s relentless stream of tweaked versions of existing models is clearly working, as it experienced a 57 per cent surge in mainland European sales during that period.

God Save the Queen, etc.