Which cars are disappearing from Britain's roads?

The cars that filled Britain’s streets in the 1990s are close to vanishing, and some of the most common cars of the 2000s are going the same way fast. We went through the licensing counts for 1,159 car models to find which are disappearing quickest and how few of the old favourites are left.

All counts are for Great Britain at the end of March 2026, from the Department for Transport’s latest vehicle licensing figures. Year-on-year changes compare with the end of March 2025.

Which cars are disappearing fastest?

The Peugeot 307 is vanishing fastest of any car with at least 10,000 still licensed, down 26.9% in a year to 16,416. The Vauxhall Vectra and Citroën Xsara are close behind, both down 25.8%.

The fastest-falling models

These are mostly family cars from the early 2000s. The Peugeot 307 lost more than a quarter of its licensed numbers in 12 months.

The Vauxhall Vectra fell to 17,052 and the Citroën Xsara to 15,355. The data can’t tell us why each car went, only that it’s no longer licensed.

Model	Licensed, March 2026	Change in a year	SORN	Highest year-end count
Peugeot 307	16,416	-26.9%	20,290	300,143 (2009)
Vauxhall Vectra	17,052	-25.8%	29,650	596,717 (2007)
Citroën Xsara	15,355	-25.8%	15,156	322,929 (2008)
Peugeot 206	26,481	-24.1%	36,206	594,727 (2007)
Jaguar X-Type	14,679	-21.2%	11,995	111,059 (2009)
Peugeot 207	92,696	-18.8%	16,805	269,821 (2013)
Fiat Punto	48,109	-18.6%	23,967	473,888 (2006)
Hyundai Getz	13,632	-17.4%	3,407	63,369 (2009)

Far below their year-end highs

The Vauxhall Vectra hit 596,717 licensed at the end of 2007. Just 17,052 are left, 2.9% of that high.

The Peugeot 206 tells the same story, down from 594,727 in 2007 to 26,481. There are now more 206s declared off the road (36,206) than licensed.

How many Ford Sierras are left?

Just 1,719 Ford Sierras were licensed in Great Britain at the end of March 2026, against 1,060,846 at the end of 1994. Another 10,521 are declared off the road.

From a million to under two thousand

That’s 0.16% of the 1994 figure still licensed. The count fell below 10,000 by the end of 2010, when 8,500 were left.

Our figures only go back to 1994, so there were probably even more Sierras on the road before then. That’s why we say “at the end of 1994” rather than calling it a peak, and you can see the year-by-year fall on our page for the Ford Sierra.

Why Sierra numbers are rising again

Licensed Sierras rose 6.7% in a year, and the count has climbed from a low of 1,588 at the end of 2023. The Ford Capri (up 10.0%) and Ford Granada (up 5.8%) show the same pattern.

The data doesn’t say why. It fits classics being restored and brought back off SORN, but that’s a pattern, not a proven cause.

Which once-common cars are nearly gone?

The Ford Orion, with 212 licensed, and the Austin Metro, with 245, are among the rarest cars that once numbered hundreds of thousands. The Peugeot 405 has just 188 left.

The old favourites with the fewest left

The Austin Metro had 554,215 licensed at the end of 1994. DVLA also lists 360 Rover Metros, down from 293,240 in 1996, and 114 MG Metros.

The Ford Orion fell from 456,680 at the end of 1994 to 212. The Vauxhall Cavalier, once past 1.2 million, has 871 left.

Model	Highest year-end count in the data	Licensed, March 2026	SORN	Change in a year
Peugeot 405	292,970 (1996)	188	2,440	-10.5%
Ford Orion	456,680 (1994*)	212	1,413	+1.9%
Austin Metro	554,215 (1994*)	245	1,250	-2.0%
Nissan Sunny	258,766 (1995)	281	1,632	-9.4%
Rover Metro	293,240 (1996)	360	2,480	-4.0%
Rover 400 Series	359,592 (1999)	450	3,565	-13.1%
Vauxhall Nova	442,343 (1994*)	577	4,942	+2.7%
Vauxhall Cavalier	1,231,963 (1994*)	871	5,586	-4.7%
Rover 200 Series	710,604 (1999)	1,204	7,876	-9.5%
Ford Sierra	1,060,846 (1994*)	1,719	10,521	+6.7%

Years marked with an asterisk: 1994 is the first year of the data, so the car may have been more common before then.

Small numbers, steady survivors

Some of these cars are barely falling any more, and the Orion and Nova both rose slightly in the last year. The data can’t say why these survivors are holding on.

Why are more of some old cars SORN than licensed?

For many old favourites, far more are declared off the road than on it. There are 6.5 SORN Rover 200 Series for every licensed one, and 6.1 for the Ford Sierra.

Licensed against SORN

“Licensed” means a car is taxed, or otherwise licensed, to be used on the road. A SORN tells DVLA a vehicle is being kept off the road, so it doesn’t need tax but can’t be driven on public roads.

SORN cars still exist, and many classics are stored or being restored. Scrapped cars appear in neither count, and our guide to how licensing counts work explains the detail.

The biggest gaps

Among models with at least 5,000 SORN, the Rover 200 Series has the biggest gap, with 7,876 SORN against 1,204 licensed. The Vauxhall Cavalier is next, with 6.4 off the road for every one on it (5,586 against 871).

Rarer cars with fewer SORN can have even higher ratios. The Peugeot 405 has 13.0 SORN for every licensed car, the Vauxhall Nova 8.6 and the Rover 400 Series 7.9.

Of all the models where SORN cars outnumber licensed ones, the Peugeot 206 has the most SORN (36,206 against 26,481). The Ford Escort is second, with 34,179 SORN against 12,342 licensed, and in all 248 models have more SORN than licensed cars.

Model (at least 5,000 SORN)	Licensed	SORN	SORN for each licensed car
Rover 200 Series	1,204	7,876	6.5
Vauxhall Cavalier	871	5,586	6.4
Ford Sierra	1,719	10,521	6.1
Ford Escort	12,342	34,179	2.8

Is the Ford Fiesta still Britain’s most common car?

Yes. 1,249,904 Ford Fiestas were licensed in Great Britain at the end of March 2026, more than any other model, even though the count fell 5.2% in a year.

The top of the table is shrinking too

The Ford Fiesta lost 68,558 licensed cars in 12 months, from 1,318,462. It’s still well clear of the Vauxhall Corsa (902,410), Volkswagen Golf (900,884) and Ford Focus (857,445).

The Vauxhall Astra is falling fastest of the 20 most common cars, down 9.7%. See the full top 20 in our most popular cars in Great Britain.

Related: Most popular cars in Great Britain

Big sellers a long way below their highs

The Ford Mondeo is down 83.2%, from 893,862 at the end of 2004 to 150,063. The Astra is down 54.1% from its 2008 high and the Focus 40.9% from 2013.

Overall, Britain’s car count is still growing. There were 33,545,602 licensed cars at the end of March 2026, up 1.4% in a year, plus 3,794,277 SORN.

Where do these figures come from?

They are the DfT’s official counts of licensed and SORN cars by make and model, table VEH0120, for Great Britain at the end of March 2026. The figures are provisional.

The source data

The counts come from DVLA’s vehicle register and are published in the DfT’s vehicle licensing statistics for January to March 2026. The model-level file, df_VEH0120_GB, is in the vehicle licensing data files.

The year-by-year history uses end-of-year counts, while the yearly changes compare the end of March 2026 with the end of March 2025. Northern Ireland isn’t included.

Model names and their limits

DVLA uses generic model names, so the Metro is split across Austin, Rover and MG. The Escort count covers every generation recorded as a car, and more background is in the DfT’s vehicle statistics collection.