Sole survivors: the very rarest cars on UK roads today

Rarity is not the sole preserve of multi-million pound classic and hypercars, as we discover with these cars where there is just one example left on the road in the UK.

Alongside some very desirable collector cars, there are also some humble saloons, hatches and estates that have simply dwindled to the extent there is now only one survivor.

The data comes from www.howmanyleft.com and is correct at the time of writing. Cars are listed in alphabetical order and images are for illustrative purposes so may not be the exact model/trim level listed.

Alfa Romeo 33 Sportwagon 16v

The difficulty of keeping a now rare model from the 1980s or 1990s is exemplified by there being only a single Alfa Romeo 33 Sportwagon 16v on the UK’s roads. Underlining how much effort it takes to keep these cars on the road is there are a further 11 that are SORNs (Statutory Off Road Notification – i.e. the cars still exist but, for now, can’t be driven on the public road).

When new, the Alfa 33 Sportwagon was every inch the rival to the BMW 3 Series Touring and handled well. However, the boot was far from the most generous and the load floor was anything but flat. Neglected and ignored as a used car, this has left just a sole survivor on the road at this point.

Alfa Romeo Arna

Many Alfa Romeo diehards will be very keen to forget the Arna, but it’s good to know there is at least one example still on the road in the UK as a historical footnote. There are also another couple on SORN, so there is the possibility of more emerging as road legal cars in the future. STOP PRESS: the only one out there is now on SORN.

Cooked up between Alfa and Nissan, the Arna used the Italian firm’s buzzy flat-four engine in a Nissan Cherry bodyshell. It gave Alfa a small, affordable car and offered Nissan the chance to establish itself in Europe. Unfortunately, the Arna missed Alfa’s driving flair and Nissan’s reliability, so it was doomed to obscurity from the start.

Aston Martin Two Litre Sports

Retrospectively known as the DB1, the Aston Martin Two Litre Sports was the first post-war Aston sports car. Only 14 were ever built of the two-seat roadster, which used a 90bhp