About

The world of cars, through British eyes.

I’m Mark Thompson, and I should be honest with you from the start: I am a car enthusiast, not a car expert. I am not a motoring historian, and if you stood me in a room and fired questions at me, I would get plenty wrong.

What I am is curious. When something about cars catches my interest, I go and find out about it properly. I read around it, I check the facts against their sources, and I only keep what I can confirm. This site is where I share what I find.

So think of it as one enthusiast’s notebook, written up carefully. If you already know the subject, I hope I have got it right. If you don’t, we are learning it together.

Here you will find:

• Car history, with the British part of the story picked out
• How cars work, in plain English
• Products, as I start to try and review them
• Opinion, clearly labelled, and you are welcome to disagree

A German sports car or a Swedish turbo belongs here too, if British drivers took it to heart, raced it, argued about it or parked it on the drive.

I list my sources. If you spot a mistake, please tell me. I would much prefer to be corrected than to be wrong.

The shop

The clothing in the shop comes in two moods, both borrowed from British motoring.

The quiet range is inspired by the Q car: the British name for a fast car that looks perfectly ordinary. No logos, no shouting. If you know, you know, if you know what I mean.

The louder range takes after the Z car, the old newspaper name for a British police car. Nobody ever missed one of those.

Find me elsewhere

For photos, shorter posts and the occasional argument, find The British Car Scene on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X, Threads and Bluesky.

Stuck at a desk? Get your daily dose of The British Car Scene at work: follow along on LinkedIn →

Background image: Brooklands circuit by Michael Gaylard, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, tinted.