Are These Are the Top 10 Greatest Classic Cars Ever?

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This should settle all the arguments.

What’s the greatest classic car in the world? The debate has raged since the first Ford beat the first Winton. And it rages still. But there’s now some scientific analysis to help settle the question. An insurance website in the UK has compiled a list. The oddly named Confused.com—a financial services platform that mostly compares insurance rates for all kinds of things, including cars—put some stats together to answer the question.

By comparing rarity, the number of Google searches, and the amount of increase in value in the last two years, Confused made it clear: The winner is… the Lamborghini Miura!

Clap, clap, clap…

Here’s the thinking: Lamborghini only made 764 Miuras from 1966 to 1973, so they’re rare. The number of Google searches seeking “Miura” annually sits at 1,461,000. And the value from May of 2019 to the “current average value” has increased from $925,000 to $1,850,000, or 100 percent. Feed that into Confused.com’s algorithm and you get a “Classic Car Score” of 8.58 out of 10, which is the highest score in the study.

Second-highest car is the Ferrari F40, with 4,081,000 Google searches, 1311 ever made, and an increase in value from $1,300,000 to $2,600,000, or 100 percent, which gives it a score of 8.51.

Third was the Ferrari GTO, with 1,545,000 Googles, a total build run of just 36, and an increase in value from $68,750,000 in May of 2019 to $70 million now, or a mere 1.8-percent more. That’s good for a score of 7.89.

Does that criteria make sense? Does that methodology make sense? Are you not amused? Then feel free to start your own top 10 list! The methodology does seem to cross over a few demographics, from wealthy buyers who are probably fairly old and can shell out millions for a collector car, to very young buyers who are not old and don’t have any money at all but do have internet access, so they Google the cars they love and lust after. Balancing those two variables are production numbers.

The list goes on for 30 places—30 cars that have struck the fancy of actual buyers or struck the hopes of the aspirational. Some you would never suspect would be on any list of the greatest collector cars in the world, the Citroën 2CV, for instance. Citroën made 3.8 million of those little air-cooled two-cylinders from 1948 to 1990, but the car got almost 800,000 Google searches, and its value increased by about a third. So the 2CV sits at number 29 on the list.

Likewise, the Pontiac Firebird—one of which you probably have on your lawn with a “Parts For Sale” sign on it—ranked number 27 on Confused.com’s list, which is, indeed, confusing, especially since Confused.com lists only 697 under “number produced,” which is probably the number imported to the UK. We in the States are swimming in Firebirds, with GM having made hundreds of thousands of the things over four generations. But the ‘Bird was Googled 2.3 million times, as much as the Lamborghini Diablo that sits at number 24 on the list.

Others up near the top make more sense. Number 4 is the AC Cobra, which is tied with the Lamborghini Countach. Number six, however, is the Datsun 240Z, ahead of the Bugatti EB 110, the latter which is tied for 7th with the Lancia Stratos. So you can see that the list is sometimes, but not always, skewed by the numbers of these cars that actually made their way into the UK. Datsun brought 160,000 or so of the Datsun 240Zs into America alone, but only 543 are shown in the United Kingdom, thus upsetting logic on that one count. That helps explain the Plymouth Superbird in 9th place ahead of the Jaguar E-Type, tied for 10 place with the Nissan Skyline GT-R.

The list goes on like that: Toyota 2000GT in 12th place on the list followed by BMW M1, Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, Aston Martin DB5, Ferrari 512 BB followed by Testarossa, Jag D-Type, Porsche 550, Ferrari 308 and on down to the Plymouth Roadrunner in 30th.

Check out the gallery to see the entire list. It’s not a perfect summation nor a flawless assignment of value. But it’s fun to look around on. So have a look. And start arguing in the comments section below—or better, give us your list.

Let the debates begin! Are these, in fact, the greatest classic cars ever? Or is it a bunch of bunkum. Let us know what your list would look like in the comments below.