Britain’s car extremes
The highest mileage and oldest cars on UK roads, and more, from the DVSA MOT record published on 1 November 2026. Every one passed its last MOT and still held one on that date.
Record
Highest mileage car still on the road
A white 2005 Land Rover Discovery showed over 909,000 miles at its MOT in 2025, and passed.
Commercial workhorses
Highest mileage van still on the road
A white 2007 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter showed over 956,000 miles at its MOT in 2026, and passed.
Vans and pickups, told apart by their model name. A van on long runs every working day out-drives any car, so they have a record of their own.
Record
Oldest car still passing its MOT
First registered in 1901
A red 1901 Albion Dog passed its MOT in 2026. Most vehicles over 40 years old do not need an MOT at all, so this is the oldest car still choosing to take one.
A red 1901 Albion Dog (oldest)
Tap a row to see the car. Yellow dots are the three oldest; the rest are the oldest of each make.
Hardest worked
Most miles a year by a car
79,600 miles a year
A silver 2018 Mercedes-Benz E-Class has averaged about 79,600 miles a year for 7 years, over 568,000 in all. That is 11 times the pace of a typical car.
Commercial workhorses
Most miles a year by a van
93,400 miles a year
A white 2019 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter has averaged about 93,400 miles a year for 7 years, over 684,000 in all. That is 13 times the pace of a typical car.
Barely used
Lowest mileage on a car over 15
A white 2009 Fiat 500 showed under 200 miles at its MOT in 2026, after 17 years on the road.
Every MOT it has had since it was new is on the record, and the reading went up at each one, so the clock has been watched from the start. Older cars are left out of this one: their clocks may have gone past 99,999 or been swapped before the record began.
Make by make
The record for each make
A white 2007 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, over 956,000 miles
Still going
How long do vehicles last?
1 in 6 from the 2000s
Of the vehicles first registered in the 2000s, about 1 in 6 still had an MOT on 1 November 2026. Go back another ten years, to the 1990s, and it is 1 in 60.
Out of each decade's vehicles on the MOT record, the share that still had an MOT on 1 November 2026.
Tap a column for that decade's numbers and a search of those vehicles.
* 2020s: most are under three years old and do not need an MOT yet. The MOT record starts in 2005, so the oldest decades only count vehicles still around then. Most vehicles over 40 do not need an MOT, so those columns are low partly because owners can skip it.
Show as a table
| Registered | On the record | With an MOT | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900s | 2,086 | 28 | 1% |
| 1910s | 4,429 | 29 | 0.7% |
| 1920s | 34,546 | 166 | 0.5% |
| 1930s | 85,487 | 656 | 0.8% |
| 1940s | 70,370 | 359 | 0.5% |
| 1950s | 382,704 | 2,947 | 0.8% |
| 1960s | 1,701,178 | 12,985 | 0.8% |
| 1970s | 14,481,330 | 20,853 | 0.1% |
| 1980s | 23,412,813 | 80,185 | 0.3% |
| 1990s | 23,389,073 | 391,111 | 2% |
| 2000s | 29,679,359 | 4,770,595 | 16% |
| 2010s | 28,995,352 | 21,395,009 | 74% |
| 2020s | 16,139,695 | 6,596,269 | 41% |
Nearly gone
Last ones standing
Models with hundreds on the MOT record and only a handful left with an MOT on 1 November 2026.
How these were found
The DVSA records every MOT test, and a few readings are slips: an extra digit, kilometres typed as miles, a car of 2010 entered as 1910. So a car only holds a record here if it passed its last test, its MOT was valid on 1 November 2026, its build year and registration year agree, and, for the mileage records, its full MOT history climbs to that reading one test at a time.
Each record is a car, not a plate: no registration is shown, models are named by family, and mileages are rounded. A typical car is the middle of every car on the road at least three years old: about 7,000 miles a year.
Is one of these yours? Email fuzzyreguk@gmail.com if you would like to tell its story, or if you would rather it was not listed.