Great Britain may not have a booming car industry these days but it still owns many of the great names of world motoring. These include Rolls Royce, Bentley and Jaguar as well as Aston Martin, made famous as the car of the secret agent James Bond, another British icon.

Working as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide, I often say that a Rolls Royce (sometimes nicknamed a ‘Roller’) costs roughly the same as the average property in the United Kingdom – i.e. around a quarter of a million pounds. This will only buy you an entry-level car and more expensive upgrades can be yours for £350,000 up to £500,000 if you buy the extras available from Rolls Royce. These include such things as matching umbrellas stored in the doors, luggage sets and even RR cufflinks.

Rolls Royce cars are made at its factory in Goodwood, West Sussex. The marques available are Phantom, Dawn, Cullinan (which is an SUV), Ghost, Spectre, Wraith and Black Badge. They have now gone into the electric car market and produce an all-electric Spectre, which has a published range of over 300 miles but a more realistic one of around 250 miles. This will set you back over a third of a million pounds (£350,000). The car has only two doors but those sitting in the rear are ‘comfortable’ once they fold back the front seats to gain access.

Old Rolls-Royce. Photo Credit: © Edwin Lerner.

The name Rolls Royce is quintessentially British and is one of the most recognised in the world (second only to Coca-Cola). The company was founded by the engineer Edward Royce and the aviator Charles Rolls and first made aeroplane engines. Rolls Royce still produces aero engines, although the car company is now separated from the one that makes engines for planes. Today it is owned by the German car manufacturer BMW who bought it in 1998.

Charles Rolls actually anticipated the arrival of electric cars over a century ago. You can see a statue of him in his home town of Monmouth where his profession of aviator is made clear. He and Royce first met in Manchester in 1904 (reputedly at the Midland Hotel) and it was felt that the double R of their surnames would make a good name for the marque which they founded. Rolls was the salesman, Royce the engineer who continued to use the name of Rolls after his partner died in 1910, the first British aviator to be killed in a flying accident.

This was a quarter of a century before Jaguar Cars was founded as SS Cars by a couple of motorcycling enthusiasts. The name Jaguar was not adopted until the end of the Second World War ten years later in 1945 but Jaguar cars won the Le Mans twenty-four race on four occasions in the 1950s and used the Le Mans engine in the famous E Type Jaguar sports car. This was possibly the most famous model in the history of British sports cars and has been called ‘the most beautiful car in the world’. Production of the E Type ceased nearly fifty years ago in 1974 but models are still sold for considerable sums in the private market. The E Type Jaguar could be bought in either a hard top or convertible version by its admirers.

Jaguar E-Type. Photo Credit: © Edwin Lerner.

The company later merged with Land-Rover and was bought by Ford of America in 1990. They sold it to Tata of India in 2008 and Jaguar now sells cars at the bottom end of the luxury market costing between £35,000 and £75,000. Jaguar Land Rover is located in its old home in Coventry and many are made in Britain with parts brought in from around the world.

Bentley is another famous luxury car brand that is named after its founder, W G Bentley, who started the company in Cricklewood, North London in 1919. Rolls Royce acquired the Bentley name in 1931 and, for many years, the two companies produced almost identical vehicles using both their names. They were separated after the company was bought by Volkswagen in 1998 and Rolls Royce was then sold to BMW. VW sells around 10,000 vehicles a year made by a workforce of 3,600, based now mainly in Crewe in Northern England. The ‘Baby Bentley’ (officially a Bentagya) are popular with today’s well-paid football players.

Bentley has always been a well-known name in racing circles and won the Le Mans twenty-four-hour race four years in succession from 1927 to 1930. At this time the cars were made famous by a group of drivers known as ‘the Bentley boys’. They were independently wealthy and many came from a military background. They were essentially amateur drivers and were led by Joel Woolf Barnato, nicknamed ‘Babe’, who won the Le Mans three times. He was also a keen cricketer, playing the first-class game as wicket keeper for Surrey. Barnato’s wealth came from diamonds in South Africa and he eventually took over the Bentley company. However, it was unable to survive the 1930s recession and was bought by Rolls Royce.

Bentley. Photo Credit: © Edwin Lerner.

One of the original Bentley boys was called Jack Barclay and the best place to see a Bentley in London today is at the dealership named after him in Berkeley Square in Mayfair. The square has the same name as the university in California but, somewhat confusingly, it is pronounced just like the car showroom. Here you can see new and second-hand Bentleys on display and, if your budget extends this far, buy one for around £100,000 to £250,000.

The spy James Bond drove a Bentley in the original books, which were written by Ian Fleming. However, the car most associated with Bond today is the Aston Martin. This sports car is mentioned in Fleming’s books but it was the vehicle used by the actors who portrayed Bond in the highly successful film franchise and they have been updated since Sean Connery, the first actor to portray Bond on film, drove an Aston Martin DB5, armed with many extras and weapons unbeknown to Fleming. He would have lived to see his hero driving an Aston Martin in the film Goldfinger but died aged fifty-six just before the film was released in 1964.

The car has been continuously updated and could even be made invisible in the film Die Another Day in which Bond was portrayed by the Irish actor Pierce Brosnan. The late Sean Connery was a patriotic Scot and was born in Edinburgh in a house since demolished. Bond, like Connery, has a Scottish background. He has also been portrayed by Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, most recently, an English actor from Liverpool, Daniel Craig. Aston Martin has benefited from the James Bond connection but the company has been bankrupted seven times since it was founded in 1913 and it usually operates at a loss. It produces 5000 cars a year at its fifty-five acre (twenty-two hectare) Warwickshire factory.

One of these, a Mark Two Volante, was purchased by the late queen for her son and successor Charles for his twenty-first birthday. He still drives this sky-blue Aston occasionally and has had it converted to biofuel so that it now runs on white wine and cheese. The royal family usually travel in customised cars provided free of charge by the British motor industry and adorned with the royal pennant. When the court is based in London these cars are usually parked in the Royal Mews near Buckingham Palace. This saves the royals – and their chauffeurs – from looking for a parking space near the royal homes. Like the rest of us.

Old Aston Martin. Photo Credit: © Edwin Lerner.

Jaguar S-Type. Photo Credit: © Edwin Lerner.

Rolls-Royce Ghost. Photo Credit: © Edwin Lerner.