Jeremy Clarkson Wonders Why Italy Kept Its Car Brands Alive While Britain Did Not
While reviewing the convertible Maserati MCPura Cielo, Jeremy Clarkson was not only talking about exhaust note, performance, and styling. As he often does, he used the car as a doorway into a bigger argument, this time about the fate of Britain’s car industry and a question that clearly nags at him: how did Italy manage to keep its automotive brands alive when Britain could not?
For Clarkson, the MCPura Cielo becomes less a single model review and more a reminder that cars can carry national identity in a way spreadsheets do not capture. The moment you start comparing Italy and the UK, you are no longer arguing about one V6, one platform, or one quarterly report.
You are arguing about what a country believes its car brands represent and what it is willing to lose when times get hard.
Britain Once Had A Deep Bench Of Brands
Photo Courtesy: Ermell, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0/Wiki Commons.
Clarkson’s point starts with a reminder that the United Kingdom used to be a genuine automotive power. Names like Humber, Riley, Wolseley, Austin, Morris, Hillman, Sunbeam, Triumph, TVR, and Bristol were once part of everyday motoring life. Today, most of them exist mainly as museum labels and trivia answers. Even brands that still carry familiar badges have changed hands. MG and Rover ended up under Chinese ownership, and Jaguar’s long-term direction has looked uncertain.
To Clarkson, that collapse was not simply about money or global competition. He frames it as something more basic than economics.
Britain Treated Cars Like Industry, Not Identity
In Clarkson’s view, Britain tended to see the automobile primarily as an industrial product. Enthusiasts might obsess over mechanical details such as carburetors, suspension design, starter motors, and clever engineering solutions, but the car as a complete cultural object often came second. When British Leyland fell apart, the loudest arguments were about the jobs that would vanish, not the vehicles that would disappear.
That distinction matters because it changes how a country reacts when an automaker loses money. If the car is mostly a business unit, then the logic is simple. If it does not make profit, it gets shut down. The factory closes, the name fades, and life goes on.
Italy Treated Brands Like Living Heritage
Clarkson argues that Italy works from a very different emotional baseline. There, a car is more than transportation. It has personality. It has presence. It has soul. Brands are treated less like corporate assets and more like living parts of national culture.
He makes the comparison vivid: closing a brand purely because it is expensive would feel, to Italians, like getting rid of a dog because pet food costs more than it used to. The logic might add up on paper, but it would still feel wrong.
In this reading, Italy preserves its marques not because they always make perfect business sense, but because they are part of Italy itself, as fundamental to its image as art, design, and cuisine.
Lancia As The Proof Point
Image Credit: Autorepublika.
Clarkson points to Lancia as a prime example. In recent years, Lancia has effectively survived on one model, the Ypsilon, and in limited volumes. From a purely financial angle, it can be difficult to justify keeping a brand alive under those conditions.
But Lancia is not just another badge. It is a name tied to major technical milestones and iconic cars. Clarkson highlights the brand’s reputation for advanced engineering, including early work that helped push unibody construction forward, plus its role in popularizing the V6 engine. Then there are the legends: the Lancia Stratos and the Lancia Delta Integrale, cars that helped define an era of rallying and performance culture.
Clarkson’s argument is that in Britain, a money-losing brand would likely have been closed long ago, no matter how storied its past. In Italy, eliminating Lancia would feel like demolishing the Colosseum to widen a road. The numbers might justify it, but the cultural loss would be unacceptable.
Maserati Surviving When Logic Said It Should Not
Image Credit: Autorepublika.
Even more fascinating to Clarkson is Maserati. After its split from Ferrari, many expected Maserati to struggle. New engines, heavy investment, and a narrower market did not sound like the ingredients for easy survival. Yet Maserati endured, and it continues to produce cars that provoke emotion even when they are imperfect.
Clarkson suggests that this is the essence of the Italian approach. Even when a car like the MCPura Cielo has flaws or suffers a technical hiccup, it still has character. It still creates a reaction. He describes the idea of losing Maserati as something that would feel culturally absurd, like shutting down a museum to save on electricity.
Culture Explains The Difference
Clarkson’s conclusion is straightforward. Italy’s ability to keep its car brands alive is not primarily the result of superior business logic. It is the result of culture and passion. Britain treated cars as an industry. Italy treated cars as art.
As long as that difference holds, Clarkson believes Italian marques will continue to survive even when the spreadsheet is not ideal. Because in Italy, a car is rarely just a product. It is part of the national story, and it is not a story Italians are willing to end quietly.
This article originally appeared on Autorepublika.com and has been republished with permission by Guessing Headlights. AI-assisted translation was used, followed by human editing and review.
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