Best selling cars from the 90s

From the deliciously fun Mazda MX-5 to that driving school favourite, the Mk2 Nissan Micra, the 1990s gave us plenty of engaging, characterful cars (and more than its fair share of barnstorming sports cars, too). Here are some of the decade's best sellers.

Dwindling numbers mean that you should protect these icons with the classic car insurance they deserve, especially if you’re only covering limited mileage each year.

Ford Fiesta Mk3

The Ford Fiesta had a very good 1990s. This was the decade in which Ford's supermini knocked its bigger brother, the Escort, off the top spot of the podium as Britain's best-selling car.

And it's been there or thereabouts ever since, thanks to factors including a great range of engine and trim levels, very enjoyable handling and road manners, and enough practicality to suit most singles, couples and small families alike.

We're looking here at the third-generation Fiesta, codenamed BE-13. This car officially went on sale in February 1989: however, as it did the vast majority of its sales during the 1990s, we think it's a safe inclusion here.

This was a relatively revolutionary Fiesta, featuring a brand new platform that jettisoned the old car's rear beam axle for a semi-independent torsion beam. What's more, this was also the first Fiesta to get a five-door version, making it a decent proposition for smaller families.
Like its two predecessors, the Mk3 Fiesta got its own XR2 model, introduced just months after the standard car in August 1989. This particular car also deserves its place in Ford history, as the first fuel-injected Fiesta.

Interesting note: the XR2i name was dropped in 1994, replaced by the Si badging – apparently because this less aggressively sporting name would work in owners' favour when it came to sorting insurance. When it comes to classic auto insurance, we're happy to quote for an XR2i, an Si, or indeed any classic Fiesta.

Vauxhall Astra Mk3

By the time the 1990s rolled around, Vauxhall's Astra model was ready for its third generation, which arrived in 1991. Both previous generations had sold well – and this one did too, even if it always fell behind its perennial rival, the Ford Escort, in the sales tables.

The third-gen Astra was, though, notable for including a sporty variant (the GSi) and a soft-top option. The former got the much-admired 2.0 litre XE 16-valve engine, which gave this otherwise sensible family car some impressive performance – if not quite in the same league as the Mk1 and Mk2 Astras' much-admired GTE hot hatches.

This generation came in hatchback, saloon and estate forms, with the former easily the most popular among UK buyers. Aside from the relatively fire-breathing 2.0 in the GSi, engine choices included 1.4 and 1.6 petrol’s and a 1.7 turbo diesel. This was also the first Astra to get power steering, made available in facelifted cars from 1995 onwards.

If you own one of these quintessentially '90s family runabouts, we'll be pleased to provide you with some classic car insurance.

VW Golf Mk3

With their reputation for sturdiness, reliability and a certain calm class, Golfs of each generation tend to be well looked after, and kept as going concerns long after some contemporaries have bitten the dust.

The Mk3 Golf, for example, while not the most distinguished of the early Golfs (that honour would have to go to either of its predecessors), is still around in decent numbers. It may have sold less well than the Ford Escort during the 1990s, but now you'll see many more Mk3 Golfs than Mk5 / Mk6 Escorts. They're just the kind of car owners like to keep hold of.

How did the Mk3 move the game along from its Mk2 predecessor? Well, the car got a little longer and heavier – slightly to the detriment of its GTI sporting variant, which perhaps never gained the same cachet as the Mk1 and Mk2 GTIs. Some key safety features were introduced to the range for the first time, though: airbags from launch, and anti-lock brakes from 1996.

Elsewhere, a Golf estate was offered for the first time. A new cabriolet version was also introduced (the Mk1 convertible had soldiered on unchanged throughout the Mk2's lifetime). These soft-tops will now be the rarest and most desirable Mk3 Golfs.

The car is also worthy of mention as the first Volkswagen to scoop the coveted European Car of the Year award, in 1992. Read our fond memories of other European Car of the Year winners elsewhere on this blog.

Nissan Micra Mk2

What car did you learn to drive in? If your formative driving years were during the 1990s or early 2000s, there's a good chance that the car in which you first ground through the gears or failed to parallel park was… a Nissan Micra.

Yes, Nissan's city car hit a high in popularity with its second generation during this decade. The bubble-shaped Mk2 Micra was a huge hit with driving instructors, first-time drivers and young families, thanks to its cute looks, simple mechanicals and frugal fuel consumption.

The car actually has a relatively decent survival rate to this day, thanks to those loveable looks, straightforward engineering and (as a result of the latter) affordable repair bills.

In fact, if you're looking around for an affordable, small, classic runabout, you could do a whole lot worse than a well-presented Mk2 Micra. Your repair and restorations costs should, all being well, not break the bank. That said, we'd still recommend some classic car cover to accompany you as you bring the car back to its mid-90s best.

Peugeot 306

Here’s another car, like the Micra above, that you won't be too astonished to see on a street near you – despite the fact that it first emerged into the world back in 1993. The 306 was a very good car that gave Peugeot some important sales back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

This particular Pug has a lot to recommend it: it's an attractive-looking car, for one thing, perhaps even more so than its 309 predecessor. (We love that car, for many reasons including its being the first British-made Peugeot). It was also, and this was very much a feature of Peugeots at this time (hello 205, hello 405), extremely good to drive. Add a range of fuel-sipping diesel engines, and Peugeot had themselves a winning package.

All that said, numbers of the 306 on UK roads are now starting to fall. It may be that, with Peugeot not having quite the same badge cachet as, say, Volkswagen, owners aren’t quite as dedicated to keeping their 306s on the road.

We fancy there's another chapter in the 306 story still to come, and that the combination of good looks and fine handling will win it a place as a modern classic in the not-too-distant future. If and when that happens, 306 lovers, we are ready with the classic car insurance you need.

Ford Escort Mk5

The 1980s was really the decade of the Ford Escort – the third and fourth generations were the UK's best-selling car for an astonishing eight consecutive years. However, it didn't have a bad '90s at all.

In fact, the Mk5 Escort didn't get off to the best of starts when it launched in 1990. It was a brand new design, but it wasn't deemed, by the motoring press, to have improved on the Mk3 and Mk4 cars in any way. It also seemed less distinctive to look at, having lost its predecessors' distinctively boxy looks.

The press may have been relatively unimpressed, but the British public continued to buy the Ford Escort in droves. It may have lost out to the Mk3 Ford Fiesta that we mentioned above in both the 1990 and 1991 sales charts, but it wasn't far behind. A 1992 facelift, featuring the new Ford oval grille, delivered some key improvements including side-impact bars and an airbag.

There were sporting variants, too. Indeed, from the Mexico via the RS2000 to the XR3, every generation of Escort had to deliver some tempting hot models. First up, Ford resurrected the revered RS2000 nameplate for the Mk5 car. Unlike its predecessors, this RS was front-wheel drive, but still had a decent engine (a four-cylinder 1998cc DOHC motor also being seen in the Scorpio and Sierra), top-of-the-range equipment and sporty Recaro seats.

Renault Clio

Let's get that advert out of the way first. The 1991 TV advertising campaign for Renault's brand new Clio is surely one of the most iconic in a long line of brilliant TV car ads.

For a year or two the words 'Papa' and 'Nicole' became synonymous with a kind of Gallic sophistication, where well-dressed, chateau-owning Frenchmen and their pretty daughters wafted around the French countryside in cool cars. Yes, the first Clio didn't just sell us a car – it sold us a lifestyle.

What really worked in the Clio's favour, though, was that it wasn't just attractive and aspirational – it was a brilliant car through and through. Great-looking, affordable and fun to drive, the Clio continued the lineage of popular small Renaults, following its popular 4 and 5 predecessors into our nation's hearts.

Especially desirable was the 143bhp Clio Williams hot hatch, widely regarded as one of the best hot hatches ever made.

BMW 5 Series (E39) Mk4

The 1995 E39 was the fourth generation of BMW's big saloon and, it could be argued, the one that really caught the public imagination. Thus far the 5 had been an admired, but slightly niche German executive saloon, and during the 1980s large family cars like the Ford Granada, Citroen CX, Volvo 240 and Rover SD1 were still lording it over the executive car class in the sales tables.

However, with the arrival of cars like the Audi A6, the W210 Mercedes E-Class and this generation of the 5, the exec class really started to take off here. And this big Beemer was probably the best of them.

It managed, arguably, a clean sweep of all the key virtues in the class: it was the most comfortable, best handling and best performing executive car you could pick up in the late 1990s. There was plenty of up-to-the-minute tech inside, and the car looked handsome and imposing. Yes please, said thousands of British senior management folk and fleet buyers alike.

You could get your Five with a sensible, fuel-sipping four-cylinder diesel (the 520d), or you could choose from a selection of effortlessly potent straight-six units. You could even bag yourself an M5 and revel in its phenomenal five-litre, V8 grunt. Oh, and more affluent families didn't need to feel left out of the 5 Series party, as there was a range of good-looking and capacious Estates on offer, too.

Rover 200

The first generation of the Rover 200 arrived in 1984 as British Leyland's replacement for the Triumph Acclaim, famously the last ever car from the Triumph marque. There were two more generations of 200 across the 1990s, and both sold well here in the UK.

The second, R8 generation of 1989-1995 was marketed alongside, and slightly upmarket from, the Austin Maestro. You could get your R8 200 in three- and five-door hatchback forms. There was also, memorably, a coupé (adventurous, for the normally sensible small family car class) and even a convertible. The coupé was an intriguing car: svelte, low-slung and sexy, it was, in 220 Turbo Coupé form, the most powerful and fastest production Rover model ever built. The two-litre, 16-valve engine put out 197bhp, and was good for 150mph and a 0-60mph time of 6.2 seconds.

Back in sensible land, you could also get the car in saloon form. However, this was known as the Rover 400, in keeping with the trend at the time for making saloons slightly more upmarket than their hatchback brothers (see also the Ford Escort and Orion pairing).

That second-generation 200 still shared many components with Honda, a product of the ongoing BL/ Honda relationship that had started with the Acclaim / Ballade pairing.

For the third-generation 200 (1995-99), Rover shrank the car somewhat, giving it a smaller hatchback shape. Part of the reason for this was that the long-serving Metro supermini was now bowing out, and Rover needed a replacement. This car had less input from Honda, Rover having by now been taken over by BMW. The final runout of the 200 had three good years of sales initially, finishing as Britain's seventh best-selling car from 1996 through to 1998.

Audi TT

Arriving right at the end of the last millennium, the Audi TT can rightly be seen as something of a game-changing car. For one thing, it was simply brilliant to drive, with its four-wheel drive, perfectly judged handling and choice of 1.8-litre, turbocharged engines (a 3.2-litre V6 later joined the family). The TT was, effectively, as engaging to chuck around a corner or blast up a B-road as the more expensive Porsche Boxster.

Lastly, there were those sensational looks: bold, like nothing else on the market at the time… yet deliciously attractive, too. Whether in 2+2 coupé or roadster form, the first-generation TT had a silhouette that was, quite simply, unlike anything else on the road at the time – a freshness of design that the (still very pretty) second generation dialled down somewhat.

The cabin was a very pleasant place to be, too, with its nicely judged mixture of metal and leather finishing. And all this in a car that was built on the same platform as the sturdy Skoda Octavia!

It's one of the youngest cars in our list but, thanks to its desirability alone, the first-generation TT looks to be nudging towards classic status already. It's certainly one of the decade’s best coupés – and here are our other nominations for that particular title. Expect to pay as much as £10,000 for an immaculately kept 3.2-litre model, and as little as £2,000 for a 1.8 in need of a little care and attention. Whichever model you go for, now is the time to arrange some classic car insurance, as we think the value of this era-defining car is only set to appreciate.

Land Rover Discovery

With the Discovery, Land Rover at once filled a niche – and created a genre. At the time, there was nothing in the British company's range between the go-anywhere, workaday and sparsely furnished Defender, and the opulent Range Rover, or 'Chelsea tractor'.

Wisely, Land Rover filled that gap with the Discovery: a car that could take you very nearly as far off the beaten track as the Defender, in very nearly as much comfort and luxury as the Range Rover. In some ways, and for certain people (the reasonably prosperous farmer; the affluent, active rural family) it was, quite simply, the perfect car. A jack of all trades, and pretty much a master of them, too.

With the Discovery, Land Rover effectively gave birth to the modern SUV – a vehicle with chunky looks and all the rugged off-road capability that most drivers were ever likely to need, but with at least as many creature comforts as the standard hatchbacks and saloons flooding the market.

That 'first to market' status has given the first-generation Discovery something of a halo appeal today, and it's a much sought-after used buy. If you're in the market for one, ask to see all service records and documentation of repair works, as they can be unreliable and expensive to maintain. Get yourself some insurance for your classic car, too, and you should be in for many miles of happy, relatively luxurious motoring – both on and off road.

Audi A3

We end with another car that created something of a niche. Nowadays, we're only too familiar with small, Golf-sized offerings from the premium brands such as Mercedes, BMW and Audi. But it wasn't always thus. When the Audi A3 arrived in 1996, the idea of a Ford Escort-sized car from the hallowed trio of German manufacturers seemed improbable. But Audi dared to dream small with the A3, and boy did it serve them well.

In fact, the decision to make a 'C-segment' car wasn't such a gamble for Audi: they were, after all, part of the larger VW Group, who were already producing three very capable cars in this sector – namely the VW Golf, Seat Leon and Skoda Octavia. All three vehicles shared the same platform – why shouldn't Audi get on board too?

The premium brand's own touches included a more upmarket cabin, such as their customers would expect. They also engineered some superior refinement into the car – that first A3 was an impressively quiet motorway cruiser.

And yes, it turned out to be a big seller: lots of British buyers wanted a car with a premium feel, but something that wouldn't guzzle fuel and that could be eased comfortably into most urban parking spaces.

If you’re buying one today, be on the lookout for worn-out brakes, steering racks, and failing catalytic converters.

Classic car insurance for '90s heroes – and older cars, too!

Many cars from the 1990s are now starting to nudge their way towards classic status. When it comes to cars from the previous decades, such as the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, a huge number of models are now acknowledged as true-blue automotive classics.

Here at Lancaster, we're proud to insure a vast range of cars from all of these decades. From a 1957 Vauxhall Victor to a 1999 Audi TT, hundreds of cars now come under the 'classic' banner, whether that’s due to age or the modest mileage they now cover.

Whatever decade your own classic hails from, why not contact us to arrange some specialist classic car insurance today?

Policy benefits, features and discounts offered may very between insurance schemes or cover selected and are subject to underwriting criteria. Information contained within this article is accurate at the time of publishing but may be subject to change.