One of the biggest surprises of 2026’s Monterey Car Week, the McLaren McL 6GT has a deeply uncool name, but everything else about it is quite the opposite. Harking back to the M6GT, Bruce McLaren’s original, never fully realised vision for a McLaren road car, it brings not only ’70s Can Am throwback looks to the table, but a proper manual gearbox. More of this sort of thing, please.
Of course, the McL 6GT wasn’t the only Car Week reveal that harked back to a McLaren of yesteryear. Gosh no. You could argue that the S1, from Gordon Murray’s Special Vehicles division, doesn’t reference the original F1 so much as outright copy it, but who are we to complain when it looks this good? Especially when it’s got a wailing 4.2-litre Cosworth V12 in the middle?
There was doubtless lots of incredulous tutting and consternation when it was announced in the late ’90s that the Mini, that paragon of swinging ’60s British cool, was to be reinvented for the 20th century by – gasp! – a German company. Nobody needed to worry, though: with the original R50 Cooper, BMW absolutely smashed it out of the park, with a design that stayed faithful to the original yet still looked and felt thoroughly 21st century.
Not necessarily the most obvious candidate for a 21st century revival, we’re nevertheless very glad Renault opted to bring back the Alpine A110 in the way that it did. Not just because its taut, shrink-wrapped bodywork looked exceptional, but because it was something so totally, refreshingly different to the rest of the power-obsessed contemporary sports car crop. It went out of production this year, and we’ve only just stopped crying about it.
After several iterations getting generally softer, floppier and less befitting of the ‘muscle car’ tag, 2009’s fifth generation Camaro righted the ship in superb fashion. After the fourth-gen car looked like it had been dredged up from the bottom of a river, the return to the original’s Coke bottom styling was more than welcome, especially as it completed the US big three’s trio of retro-drenched muscle revivals.
A retro design doesn’t have to reference one specific car to be successful. Just look at the Hyundai Ioniq 5: there are hints of Lancia Delta, classic Golf… It’s simultaneously borrowing from plenty while copying nothing (why does that sound familiar?), although the one thing it really doesn’t resemble is anything from the back catalogue of Hyundai itself. Perhaps that’s why it works so well.
Mmmm, yes. Lovely. Nominally inspired by the never-raced Shelby-De Tomaso P70 Can Am machine from 1965, the P72 is really just an amalgamation of lots of ’60s sports car racer traits, all voluptuous curves and dramatic proportions. It’s married together with a heavily fettled Ford V8 and one of the most gorgeously appointed interiors we’ve ever been fortunate enough to sit our sorry behinds in.
It’s the car that almost singlehandedly kickstarted the 21st century muscle revival, with styling that unashamedly harked back to the seminal ’60s original. Early examples still hailed from that era when America seemed to be trying its best to get hilariously tiny power figures out of massive engines (300bhp from a 4.6-litre V8!), but by the time it reached its hardcore Boss 302 or supercharged, 662bhp Shelby GT500 forms, we were fully smitten, live rear axle or not.
The sort of big, jolly bus the family car world needs more of. It cleverly avoids leaning too hard into the looks of the original split-window Transporter, because that would be a rubbish shape for an EV, but the DNA is clear, especially if you go for one of the two-tone colour schemes. Which you definitely should.
Retro design doesn’t always come without controversy, and there were many who were outraged – outraged, we tell you! – that the new Defender wasn’t a hard-livin’, sheep-haulin’, spine-ruinin’ agricultural 4×4 like the old one was. The thing is, though, there’s not much need for cars like that anymore when the Toyota Hilux exists, and by the end of its life, people were mainly buying old Defenders because they looked cool, so can you really blame Land Rover?
Until recently, very few people would have been brave enough to admit that their favourite era of Aston was the brutal and boxy ’70s, but guess what: boxy is back, baby. It’s not a look that necessarily should work when paired with the chassis of the curvaceous modern-day Vantage, but it somehow does, especially when it’s got a twin-turbo V12 and a six-speed manual to play with. Exuberant sideburns and a tight-fitting leather jacket are optional.
Look at it! Look at its little face! If, for some reason, you don’t like the new Renault Twingo, then may we suggest lightening the heck up? This is the third of Renault’s run of modern-day EVs that hark back to three of its most successful little cars of days of yonder, and while they’re all brilliant, in our eyes, the Twingo is the most successful of the lot.
Wondering why retro cars are suddenly the flavour of the month again in Europe? One word: China. Nostalgia is the one thing the new wave of cheap, well-equipped Chinese cars don’t have in their pockets (well, that and ADAS systems that don’t threaten to fast-track you to a padded cell), and it seems to be working: the Fiat Grande Panda took so long to arrive in Britain because Fiat was busy knocking out LHD cars to meet massive European demand. And rightly so: it’s ace.
How old does something have to be to be considered ‘retro’? After all, the Koenigsegg CC850 is heavily inspired by Koenigsegg’s first proper production car, the CC8S. That came out in 2002, which was only, what, 10, 11 years ago? Right? Right? Thank you, Koenigsegg, for reminding us of the cold, uncalculating march of time. Cool car, though.
Oh, what could have been. Beating everyone else in the charming little retro EV race by several years, the Honda e could have been brilliant, were it not for its astronomical price and extremely un-astronomical range. What was never in doubt was the brilliance of its design, though: a bit of classic Civic/N360 mixed with a whole lot of cyberpunk vibes and one of the best small car interiors in recent memory. And it died so the e:Ny1 could live. Sigh.
Here’s something interesting: while lots of retro cars are inspired by models that lived long lives (Mini, Beetle, Renault 5, et al), the original Dodge Challenger was built for just five years, which means that its modern namesake lived three times longer. Plenty of time, then, for us to admire its brooding good looks and succession of increasingly ridiculous supercharged versions with names like ‘Redeye, ‘Jailbreak’ and ‘Up Yours, Fuel Economy’. Okay, we might have made that last one up.
The new Bronco is not only a hugely successful piece of retro styling and a superb off-road tool, it also singlehandedly rescued the reputation of a car that could previously only be pictured in white, with a squadron of LAPD cruisers slowly tailing it. That’s the power of good design right there.
You know what the car industry is seriously lacking in these days? Silly fun. Everything’s a bit serious, and we get it: it’s harder than ever to turn a profit as a car company. Still, we must be grateful for Renault and the ‘because we can’ attitude that’s led to it recreating a wild ’80s homologation special as a 536bhp, all-electric skid machine. Top marks.
It’s telling that this non-hybrid, V12-powered wedge of exotica appears to be far hotter property among collectors than the latest main entrant in Ferrari’s hypercar lineage, the V6 hybrid F80. Is this in fact the car that should have succeeded the LaFerrari? We could debate that all day, but instead, let’s just enjoy its many delightful old-school details, from the ’60s Le Mans racer shape to the ’80s Testarossa-aping strakes. It’s a mish-mash of cues, in the best possible way.
One of the biggest strokes of genius the automotive industry’s ever seen. Even VW itself probably couldn’t have predicted the fervour with which the buying public responded to what was, effectively, just a Golf with a quasi-’60s body plonked on top of it. We’ll take ours in ultra-rare V6-powered R32 form, please.
It took some bravery to try and reinterpret a car as drop-dead gorgeous as the Mercedes 300 SL ‘Gullwing’. It’s a bit like someone suggesting they pop down to their artist’s studio and whip up a new Mona Lisa. The SLS AMG worked, though, mainly because the only bits it really copied from the 300 SL were its general shape and signature doors, pairing them up with what was otherwise a typically tyre-unfriendly AMG machine of its era.
In the 1950s, the BMW 507 was a gorgeous V8 powered roadster that nobody really understood at the time, but which later came to be regarded as an outright classic. Then, in the early 2000s, along came the BMW Z8, which drew heavy inspiration from the 507… and which was a gorgeous V8 powered roadster that nobody really understood at the time, but which later came to be regarded as an outright classic. Funny how these things work out.
In Europe, at least, the Toyota Land Cruiser seemed to be a car that made less and less sense as the years rolled by. Then Toyota launched the J250 version in 2023, complete with styling that harked back to various previous iterations of the model. Predictably, the market went bananas, and in the UK, even with an eye-watering £75k entry point, the entire first year’s allocation was gone pretty much instantly.
A slightly niche one, this, given that only five were built in 2022 (followed by another five related 1300 OT coupes a couple of years later). It’s based on the Alfa 4C – not the most dynamically sorted starting point, to put things kindly – but gets a bespoke body inspired by the Abarth 1000SP, a long-forgotten but desperately pretty little racing car from the ’60s. Still, a lovely hat tip to the hardcore Abarth nerds.
In the ’80s, long before the retro car design movement was in full swing, Nissan stumbled upon a neat idea: use its contemporary platforms to do a series of limited-run cars that harked back to the then not-so-distant days of the ’50s and ’60s. There was the Figaro convertible, which you’ve definitely seen if you’ve ever been anywhere near Notting Hill, a little snail-shaped van called the S-Cargo (geddit?), and a cutesy hatch called the Be-1, but our absolute favourite is the Pao, a sort of miniature estate car that cribs from stuff like the Citroen 2CV and Renault 4 with its corrugated panels and fabric roof. It’s just delightful.
The reborn Fiat 500 is a valuable lesson for car companies everywhere. Make a car look good, and price it well, and people will buy it. And buy it some more. And some more. And on and on, until it’s somehow in its 18th year on sale and people are still buying it. The 500 earned its long production run, though: just like the original, it managed to be affordable for the masses and yet a hugely desirable object, and that’s not an easy trick to pull.
Until the GMSV S1 came along, this might be the retro car that cribbed the most blatantly from its inspiration. In its proportions and its details, it was unbelievably close to the Mk1 GT40 that inspired it, which makes it all the more impressive that lead stylist Camilo Pardo still managed to make it look contemporary. It even sometimes behaved the way you’d expect a ’60s racing car to, as one J. Clarkson once found out.
In its prime, the Can Am series was home to some of the lairiest, most unhinged racing cars around, the sort of things you’d need nerves of titanium to even sit in with the engine running, let alone drive. So what sort of person would want a road car heavily inspired by them? It’s us. We’re the sort of people. Especially when said car has a 7.0-litre, 700bhp V8 and weighs under 900kg.
Is it essentially just a rebodied Maserati MC20? Yes. Do we wish Alfa was building more than 33? Oh yes. Does part of us also wish the first proper Alfa Romeo supercar in six decades had a daring new design rather than just rehashing the last one? Honestly, to an extent. And yet, all of those perfectly rational criticisms go out of the window as soon as we lay eyes on the new 33 Stradale. It’s the Alfa effect in full force.
Retro EV round two for Honda, this time based on one of the company’s JDM kei cars and, sensibly, with a price not far off half what was being asked for the e a few years back. That, we hope, is enough alone to see the Super-N succeed in Britain, because like its big rival, the Renault Twingo, it’s the kind of loveable bundle of fun we need more of on the road.