And Europes most reliable car is...... WHAT !!!!!!!! REALLY !!!!!!!!!!

British and French brands produce Europe’s most reliable cars, according to the latest research by Warranty Direct’s Reliability Index.

With the 85^th Geneva Motor Show displaying the latest automotive technology closing its doors at the end of last week, Warranty Direct has revealed which are Europe’s most reliable models. The vehicles analysed were an average of five years old with mileages of around 50,000.

British brand, Vauxhall, topped the table with its diminutive Agila model the most reliable European-badged car on the road.

French manufacturers, Peugeot and Citroen completed the top three, with their similarly small 107 and C1 superminis.

Swedish, Spanish, German and Czech brands also won places in the top 10 reliability rankings with Volvo, SEAT, Volkswagen, Smart and Skoda.

Vauxhall’s Agila is most likely to incur issues with its axle and suspension, accounting for an average of 30% of its faults. The cooling and heating system is responsible for 44% of the Peugeot 107’s downtime; with fellow French carmaker Citroen finding most of the issues in its C1 derive from the electrics.

TEN MOST RELIABLE EUROPEAN CARS

Car	Rank	Warranty Direct Average Reliability Index	Most Common Faults (Average % of faults)
Vauxhall Agila	1	9	Axle & Suspension (30%)
Peugeot 107	2	18	Cooling & Heating System (43.75%)
Citroen C1	3	20	Electrical (44.44%)
Volvo S40	4	25	Axle & Suspension (33.33%)
Peugeot 3008	5	29	Electrical (40%)
SEAT Ibiza	6	30	Axle & Suspension (25%)
Volkswagen Lupo	7	30	Electrical (57.14%)
Skoda Fabia	8	32	Electrical (34.62%)
Citroen Berlingo Multispace	9	38	Electrical (45%)
Smart Fortwo	10	50	Engine (31.37%)

Volvo S40 drivers report more axle and suspension faults, with a third suffering complications. Warranty Direct’s data reveals Smart’s Fortwo most frequently faces engine issues, accounting for more than one in three of its breakdowns.

Warranty Direct managing director, David Gerrans, said: “It’s good to see a British manufacturer at the top of the table, especially at a time when Britain’s automotive industry is flying high. Our data also highlights that Swedish, Czech, Spanish and French carmakers are all more reliable than their often celebrated German counterparts, which will surprise some consumers, who may still assume that German cars are the most durable.”

At the other end of the scale, the Audi RS6 is Europe’s most unreliable vehicle, with data indicating it’ll break down at least once a year. Four out of the five most unreliable models are produced by German manufacturers.

FIVE LEAST RELIABLE CARS

Car	Rank	Warranty Direct Average Reliability Index	Most Common Faults (Average % of faults)
Audi RS6	1	1123	Axle & Suspension (34.43%)
BMW M5	2	766	Electrical (29.47%)
Porsche 911 (996)	3	652	Electrical (26.27%)
Bentley Continental GT	4	593	Electrical (31.73%)
Mercedes-Benz CL	5	582	Axle & Suspension (32.39%)

Warranty Direct’s Reliability Index score is calculated on a combination of vehicle criteria from a database of more than 50,000 live policies:

• Frequency of failure
• Cost of repair
• Duration of repairs
• Average age and mileage

The higher the Reliability Index score, the worse the car is – the lower the score, the better and the average RI number is 100.

Lister to expand with new Multi Million pound supercar.

• Lister riding high on re-launch success with sales totalling over £3m in 12 months          
• Andrew & Lawrence Whittaker nominated for ‘Personal Achievement of the Year’ for their work with Lister at the International Historic Motoring Awards
• Investors being sought for exciting new company expansion programme
• Strategy to develop and launch all-new sports and Hypercar projects

Re-launched at the end of 2013, just at the turn of its 60^th anniversary year, The Lister Motor Company has enjoyed an unprecedented return to sports car manufacturing, rapidly taking orders for their exciting anniversary ‘Knobbly’ sports racing cars from customers keen to buy into the heritage of one the most historic and significant of all the British sports and racing car manufacturers.

In the past 12 months since Lister’s re-birth, the company has successfully sold nine of the limited run of its £350,000 ‘Knobbly’ anniversary cars generating an order book with a value of over £3million, whilst also establishing the ‘Brian Lister Trophy’ - awarded to the most successful competitor racing a Lister car in the historic racing scene. 

Furthermore, the father and son team behind the company’s re-launch, Lawrence and Andrew Whittaker, have also been nominated for the ‘Personal Achievement Award’ in the UK’s prestigious International Historic Motoring Awards.

Now, the management team has announced its desire to expand the Lister business into new and exciting product development, with the intention of launching a new, highly sophisticated Hypercar that will return Lister to the leading edge of low-volume sports car manufacturing in the UK as well as Asia and North America.

Lawrence Whittaker, Managing Director of Lister Cars, says: “Our aspiration has always been to return the Lister brand to the forefront of people’s minds. The ‘Knobbly’ project has firmly established that the Lister name still has enormous good will and we know we have a brand with a lot of marketable collateral attached to it.  

Over the coming years our ambitions are to create a world beating brand new Hypercar with a list price of somewhere in the region of  £2million. We are currently seeking external investors that have the desire to join us on what promises to be an incredible journey, because if we proceed with our ambitious plans, it is fundamental that the entire project is sufficiently resourced in order to deliver a serious, world-beating new product.”

As well as the significant international success achieved by the original Lister team in the 1950s, Lister retuned to the market in 1989, under the management of Laurence Pearce, who launched the Lister XJS 7.0 V12, selling 90 of the £115,000 cars. Pearce went on to build the Lister Storm Le Mans car, enjoying huge success in GT racing and building four 200mph Storm road cars at a retail price of £350,000.  

Brian Lister, the founder of the original company, has fully endorsed the recent re-launch of the business and remains an enthusiastic advisor to the new management team.