Ever wanted to know how many models of a particular car were left running on the UK’s roads? Yes? In that case I’ve found the perfect website for you.
It’s called How Many Left? and allows you to enter the name of a car model to receive stats by year showing how many examples were registered in the UK. From what I can tell the latest data is from 2010 and only goes back to 1994, but that still gives plenty of data to pore over.
Out of curiosity I tried the Renault Clio Williams and found out that there were 131 original Willies on the road in 2010 (down from 370 in 1994), 125 of the Williams 2 and just 83 of the Williams 3. Look at the detail behind each model and you’ll find that there are a lot registered as off-the-road (SORN) so that means there could be a few restoration projects lurking in people’s garages and outbuildings.
Did you know that there were only 77 Ford Focus RS500s registered in 2010? And that the number of Lotus Talbot Sunbeams seems to be fluctuating quite a lot year on year?
For car geeks like me this is fascinating stuff. You can see how the numbers of some great cars dwindle over time, no doubt the result of write-offs and mechanical failure. What was the first car you owned? How many of those are left? In my case it was a Vauxhall Nova Antibes (with white hub caps, considered very flash when it was new in the 80’s) and there are only 24 left.
How Many Left? has even proved to be so popular that it was featured on Top Gear. When Clarkson & Co. discussed it the site received so much traffic that night that it crashed, but was soon back up and running and serving those invaluable car stats.
How Many Left? is free to use so why not give it a try?