These Are The Most Popular Classic Cars Of The Last Year, Say Experts

If you’re reading this, you’ve likely spent a shamefully long time browsing online car sales sites, window-shopping for classic cars to fill your fantasy garage with. Between us, the CT team’s probably lost weeks to this pastime that we could have been using to do properly important things instead.

But have you ever wondered if the cars you’re idly browsing and seriously considering taking out an ill-advised bank loan to buy align with what fellow saddos… sorry, enthusiasts, are eyeing up?

Peugeot 205 GTi

If so, then our friends-stroke-friendly-rivals at PistonHeads have just revealed their 2025 market trends list, highlighting a selection of cars that they reckon have seen the most love over the last year. The list was compiled using internal data points around their online sales listing and editorial content, and also saw the help of Giles Gunning of The Classic Valuer, a site that tracks market values for classic cars.

The list’s been neatly split into three eras: classics introduced in 1985 and earlier, modern classics built between 1986 and 2009, and future classics – cars built since 2010 that already seem like sure-fire collector favourites.

Datsun 240Z

From each era, one car has been highlighted in the ‘budget’ realm of £30k and under, one mid-level choice, and one that most of us could only dream of owning if we won the lottery or found oil in our back gardens.

On to the list, then. Among the pre-’86 cars, the budget choice is the Peugeot 205 GTi, long held to be one of the finest hot hatches of all time. Representing the middle of the market is the Datsun 240Z, the first and still one of the best of Nissan’s long lineage of Z sports cars.

Lamborghini Miura

Finally, the pipe dream pick for this period is the Lamborghini Miura, the car that pretty much invented the supercar as we know it.

Among what we’ll call millennial classics, the favourite at the lower end was another no-frills French hot hatch: the Renault Clio 182, and in particular, the rare Trophy version with its trick racing-derived remote reservoir dampers.

Renault Clio 182 Trophy

Levelling up, probably the only car controversial enough to get debated in the House of Commons, the Lotus Carlton, proved particularly popular. Meanwhile, those who put themselves in the shoes of oligarchs or minor royals for their fantasy car shopping most favoured the Ferrari Enzo from this period.

The first entry among the future classics is a car that’s still in production now: the Toyota GR Yaris. Like everyone else, we’ve heaped so much praise on this car that you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but here’s a gentle reminder: it’s bloody brilliant.

Lexus LFA

The favourite in the next tier up is the slightly mad 997-generation Porsche 911 GT2, with its blend of twin-turbo power and rear-wheel drive. And at the very top end is another Toyota. Sort of. It’s the Lexus LFA, whose howling 4.8-litre V10 may well be the single greatest engine ever fitted to a road car.

So, has your fantasy car browsing over the last year aligned with the masses? Or, like us, are you a bit weird, and spend your hours desperately scouring the web for Lancia Thema 8.32s and Zagato-bodied Toyota MR2s?