The Ashes in Cars

Following the nail-biting end to the Headingley test yesterday (in which England just won, causing some England fans to bestow a knighthood on Ben Stokes), I thought it would only be fair to do a Car Ashes series. I'll look at some of each of the sides' most iconic cars across genres, and vote on the overall winners. If you disagree with the results, please let me know in the comments. Anyway, onto the first battle: small cars.

SMALL CARS:

England's representative in this battle is obvious: the Mini. The iconic small car is loved around the world and is a symbol of Great Britain. Finding an acceptable Aussie entry is harder. The somewhat cancerous recent Holden Barinas wouldn't even put up a fight, the Goggomobil doesn't really fit within the spirit of the class and the Ford Fiesta counts as British. So that leaves us with the Suzuki-spec Holden Barinas. While these are decent cars, England take the lead with this battle.

ROADSTERS:

This class is tailor made for Britain as before the advent of the Mazda Miata MX-5, Britain were the capital of the roadster world. Brands such as Austin Healey and Lotus exemplified convertibles, but I'll have to vote for the Jaguar E-Type here. This car is a true style icon in every sense of the word, having debuted stunningly in 1961 and continued on for 13 years, being the world's fastest car for many of them. I was considering settling with the weird plastic-body Bolwell Ikara as the Australian convertible, but then I decided that a car with a slightly better chance of not having its face bitten off was the Holden Cascada. However, still Britain takes an early lead.

MUSCLE CARS:

Australia comes roaring back into this fight with this round. There are so many to choose from- HSV W1, Holden HQ Monaro, Ford Mustang Supercar and even the Chrysler Charger. But we have to go with the number 1 of all time in terms of Australian car values- the Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III of 1971. The Falcon really epitomizes the car culture of Australia. In Britain, big bruising V*s are much more of a rarity, considering the Brits prefer cars like Lotuses (Lotei?) and Jaguars. There are still candidates- Jaguar XKRS, Rover SD1. But we'll choose the Vauxhall Lotus Carlton. The Carlton really took the fight to the BMW M5 in 1990 when it was released and was quite well known. But it isn't worth $750000, so the battle goes to Australia. The Ashes are in the balance.

OFF-ROADERS:

Quite potentially Edgbaston 2005, the offroaders segment at first seems easy for Australia but then you think about the fact that the most loved offroading brands- Toyota, Nissan, jeep- are not Australian. Which really means as an offroader, we have to choose something from Holden, or the weird Ford Falcon offroad ute thing from the eighties, and the best choice is the Holden Jackaroo, which is just a rebadged Isuzu but considering every offroader Holden has offered is, not much else was available. In the British camp though, the Land Rover Defender has been around for seventy years and is the biggest icon of offroad driving worldwide. The Defender's longevity can be attributed to a simplistic ruggedness, and bulletproof reliability, and for these reasons it takes the Jackaroo's scalp. 3-1.

LUXURY CARS:

Another round where it's hard to defend Australia, but not because their defender is poor by any respect. The HSV Grange/Senator is quite an Australian car and it's better for it with a big V8 up front and a lot of leather in the back. However, when you're up against a Rolls-Royce, nothing wins in the luxury stakes. The rebirth of R-R occurred in 2003 with the release of the Phantom, which set a new benchmark in luxury that not even the Mercedes S-Class has held a candle to. Bespoke paint, hand stitched leather, and more options than a video game menu lead to a convincing lead for England.

HYPERCARS:

Both of the cars in this battle are fairly new, and very closely matched. The Brabham BT-62 is Australia's sole representative ever in this class, so it is in by default. Currently track only but with a roadgoing version planned, the car is the brainchild of Sir Jack Brabham's son David and costs 1.5 million dollars. For the UK, the Lotus Evija, Aston Maritn Vulcan and One-77 and the upcoming Ariel hypercar would all have been suitable candidates but the chosen one is the Aston Martin Valkyrie. The car is futuristic in every sense of the word, but with Christian Horner and Adrian Newey from F1 team Red Bull Racing helping develop the car, why wouldn't it be? And how can you go past it? The Brabham is very, very close, but the involvement of the RBR boffins seals the deal for the Valkyrie: 5-1.

TRACK DAY CARS:

For Britain the cars of Caterham instantly spring to mind, as do Ariel, BAC, Lotus, Radical, Zenos, Morgan, Westfield, Jaguar (Project 8 XE, XJ220 TWR) and TVR. For Australia, the only competitor is the Elvin. Sorry, the Elfin. No contest. The car we will profile, though, is the Caterham 620R, although it's worth googling all of the above marques considering some of their cars are absolute beasts. The 620R has brutal acceleration, tonnes of grip and a windscreen! But it's also the fastest Caterham and the second fastest of all of the beasts mentioned above. Australia are taking an absolute battering, but the next class might be better for them.

SEDANS:

The obvoious Australians are the commodore and Falcon. The Commodore I'm going to select here as it kept strong sales for longer than the Falcon, and counting the car not called Commodores but still similar in brief, dates back longer. It's a true Australian icon, and the British don't have much to hold a candle to it. The various Rovers, Opels, and Fords are all kind of ordinary compared to the Australian offering, but we'll chose the Vauxhall Insignia because we have to. The executive from Bedfordshire has been taken down by the hooligan from Melbourne; 6-2.

VANS:

The funky Holden Combo represents Australia in this final battle, but the Barina-based car has nothing on the iconic Ford Transit. Another example of simplistic British engineering, it has lasted nearly 60 years with the same nameplate. It's iconic for being the preferred choice of the White Van Man, and also for the Top Gear hosts converting two into hovercraft.

That means that England has beaten Australia convincingly with a final score of 7-2. Do you agree? Please post your comments below unless you think England should have won 9-0, which if this is the case, go back to the Ben Stokes thing.