The best-looking cars made by every car company

So we decided to choose the car we reckon represents every major car brand at its best. We know you won’t agree with every choice, but we do hope you enjoy the journey:

An almost preposterously long bonnet, voluptuous wheel fairings, a rakishly compact cockpit of a cabin – this was rapid transit, 1930s style. Rapid, indulgent transit from eight cylinders.

Brawn on wheels, the Cobra appears to be bursting with power and indeed, usually is. It’s because the AC Ace from which it swelled was so well-proportioned that the Cobra works.

A perfect blend of Alpine’s A110 Berlinetta past and the design language of the present, the new A110’s pretty, trim and athletic alloy bodywork makes you want to step inside and drive.

These were almost unsalable new, skewered by astronomical prices despite their lightweight beauty. Prices eventually hit the millions for the 19 originally made, prompting the 1990s build of four more utilizing unused chassis numbers.

As glamorous as any pre-war Alfa Romeo, Hispano-Suiza or Mercedes, Auburn’s straight eight series reached its lofty design zenith for the 1935 model year. Despite this achievement, Auburn ceased manufacturing in 1937.

Clean-sculpted to the point of utilitarianism, the original TT combined modernity with an irresistible flavour of avant garde 1930s design, a theme abandoned in subsequent generations.

Still one of the most handsome two-seater sports cars ever, and purest in its early, folding windscreen form that turns it into a speedster. Crude mechanicals are part of the charm.

This is the spare look of your 21st century single seat roadster. There’s not much bodywork, but what there is turns compellingly shapely the more you stare.

Among the most handsome Bentleys ever, and it shares a platform with a Volkswagen. It’s decidedly more handsome than a Phaeton however and though big, does not look as unnecessarily large as its current successor.

Albrecht von Goertz’s 1956 507 was as handsome as any contemporary Ferrari, but a costly build pushed its price too close to these exotics, killing the car after only 252 were built, and bankrupting BMW.

Extravagant, fantastical, sculptural and suggestive of exotic lives lived by the few, the Atlantic borders on the mythic. And the intrigue continues with the clamshell doors and the vertical fin continuing the split screen’s vee.

If the bearing of the Riviera seems heavy for a Buick, that’s because it was originally destined to be a Cadillac or even a revived LaSalle. But it ended up as a beauty, nonetheless.

The fins were the highest they’d ever been, the bullet tail lights redolent of the rocket age, and an interior packed with luxury technology with power for everything. The ’59 represented Cadillac and parent General Motors at their heights of self- confidence – perhaps America itself too.

A brand mostly associated with mediocrity today, it’s easy to forget Chrysler once had an upmarket image and one that launched many innovations that became commonplace. And it had cars that had stature, shown most by this model, enhanced by its real wood and the majesty of its long hood, turning the necessity of housing a straight eight into virtue.

GM design chief Bill Mitchell’s ’59 Stingray concept car turned showroom eye magnet. Developed in secret because GM had banned racing, it saved the ‘Vette from early extinction.

Much car design of the 1950s was American influenced. Not the DS, which was shaped by an Italian sculptor and the wind. It levitated as well, to the accompaniment of space age clicks and whirrs.

Front-wheel drive packaging allowed a floor low enough to eliminate running boards, the headlamps were hidden pop-ups and the Cord’s elegantly boxy prow produced a beautiful car of tomorrow. Unreliability killed it, but the shape was repeatedly revived by others.

A quintessential ‘60s muscle car, but one of finesse, from the clean-flanked Coke bottle waist to the sleek, fat-pillared fastback and hidden headlamps, the Richard Sia-designed Charger is a handsome legend.

Duesenberg’s aristocratic Model J chassis was the basis for many extravagantly elegant pre-war American cars but only briefly, the model launched in 1928, shortly before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Many celebrities bought them, but the marque folded in 1937.

At first sight its lines seem simple, but the more you look, the more complex it becomes, from the fuselage front wings to the haunched rear, from slashed air extractors to delicate front quarter bumpers. Exquisite.

No-one can deny that retro doesn’t sell when the designers get it right, and they certainly did with this remake, which has lasted years. Cute, well detailed and hides the transposition of engine from rear to front painlessly.

It might be low in height at 40inches, but it’s high in stature with its multiple Le Mans wins and like the Lamborghini Miura, this Ford shaped the direction of supercar development.

Strictly speaking this prototype shouldn’t make the cut but we’re going to cut a special deal for this impishly pretty little sports convertible that was Honda’s first car – and what an effort it was.  It weighed just 510kg, which was probably fortunate as it just had a 356cc engine.

Truth be told, the words beauty and Hyundai are uneasy bedfellows, so in this case we’ll settle for ‘handsome,’ and we reckon this Sonata fits the bill. Flowing lines means it’s an easy look from any angle.

Infiniti’s designs haven’t always bothered automotive beauty parades, which is why the second generation Q60 stands out: bold and confident, it shows its muscles with delicacy.  

It’s over six decades since this car’s beauty robbed us of our breath, and still the E-Type is widely considered to be the most beautiful car ever. That it appeared roughly half-way through the evolution of the car to date perhaps begs questions of car design since.

Jaguar’s Malcolm Sayer takes much credit for the roadster’s shape, but it was metal craftsman Bob Blake, an American from North Dakota, who fabricated the coupe.

Can Jeeps ever be beautiful? Should they, even? This is another company where handsome is the place to aim for, and we reckon the current Grand Wagoneer has this to a tee. It has elegance, and none of the unpleasant overtones of aggression that blights so many in the luxury SUV class.

It only seemed the day before yesterday that owning a Kia could make you the target of jokes from your friends; no longer – it competes with BMW and sometimes beats it too. And one way it’s been doing this is by considerably upping its visual game in recent years, so we give no apologies in choosing a current model, in this case the EV6 GT which to our eyes is a triumph of the crossover class, looks-wise.

Not quite the first mid-engine road car, but the Miura fired the gun on a half-century’s supercar development. Few of this breed has since matched its voluptuous beauty, though unlike the Miura most remain glued to the ground at speed.

The beauty of functional form is clear to see in the original Range Rover. View the prototypes before and after the design process, and you’ll see that the finishing touches were applied with ground-breaking flair.

It remains amusingly absurd that the unbelievably dramatic LF-A is also perhaps the most un-Lexus model of them all – and that’s before you’ve turned it on to hear that screaming V-10 in full verve. And they say Toyota is dull…

A marque that has spent too much of its 100+ year history in Cadillac’s shadow, Lincoln’s designs deserve to be better noted. We’re going for this 1956 Continental – and yes we know this is strictly speaking not a Lincoln, but it really is… We love the confident scale of this machine, its expansive hood going to a bold snout, and its criss-cross grille.

The “if it looks right, it is right” cliché surely applies to the first Elan, whose form and detail were perfect enough to heavily inspire Mazda’s MX-5.

Maserati’s racer-turned-road-car A6G series yielded many desirable coachbuilt designs, among the best of them Pininfarina’s exquisite GCS coupe. Delicate of line, the power of its 2.0-litre six is confirmed by a dramatic pair of side exit exhausts.

Mazda has long made cars that stand out compared to many other Japanese designs, and with the third RX-7 it succeeded effortlessly, with sensuous curves that are a rival for anything from Italy, then or now.

The odd detail apart the F1 still looks contemporary now, the subtle packaging of its aerodynamic features allowing it a calm fluency of lines missing from most modern supercars.

It isn’t only the doors. The slender blisters crowning each wheelarch, the fine metalwork of the grille, the air extractors in the front wings and above all, the low, long-bonnet proportions make an arresting beauty of this car.

We reckon the MGA is the prettiest car to ever wear an MG badge. It’s also the car that made America fall for the small roadster in general and MG in particular – and no wonder.

The older it gets, the more of a triumph this total rework of the 1959 original seems. It’s unmistakably redolent of its inspiration, yet entirely modern and like its forebear, perfectly proportioned.

Mitsubishi decided it needed to change its image, and designed itself a junior Ferrari. Unfairly forgotten now, it’s one of the stand-out Japanese designs of the ‘90s.

This is automotive allure of the alternative kind, and not only because of the wheel shortfall. The vintage engineering concept, fine detailing lend this upturned tub of a car an arrestingly functional beauty.

Beauty is not a word you always associate with Nissans of the past or present, but we reckon its R390 racer fits the bill, with its sensuous curves expressive of speed. Just one road car was made alongside several racers, and it was designed by the Britons Tony Southgate and Ian Callum, alongside Yutaka Hagiwara.

It’s big, huge even, and thus has presence, but size isn’t the Toronado’s only arresting feature. Exquisite proportions, pillarless elegance and spare detailing are as much a triumph as its front-drive powerpack.

We reckon the 504 Cabriolet is the most beguilingly desirable Peugeot ever made, made more so by the fact that it so clearly outshines the rather dowdy other 504 models available. Still sensational today, it must have stopped the traffic in 1970.

It gives pleasure from every angle you inspect, its delicacy of line ever more appealing in this age of perpetually enlarging cars. And that includes the 911.

A look of broodingly curvaceous menace distinguished this special edition GTO, standard kit including a potent Ram Air V8, heavy duty suspension, a blacked out grille, a spoiler and (surprisingly subtle) stripes. A classy slice of muscle.

It may have only been modestly powerful, but the dainty lines of the Caravelle made it an enduring design that pleases to this day.

Sensuous dignity, luxuriant grace and arrestingly bold nautical detail distinguish the coachbuilt Boat Tail, the three individuals buying one contributing substantially to its essence.

For a long time Seat was a company that produced modest everyday cars, so the arrival of this distinctly impractical sports car was a surprise – and a good looking one too.

Communist-era cars weren’t supposed to be handsome – they could leave that to the West. So the Felicia’s delicate details are what delights here; certainly a car that could have come from France or Italy.

Subarus are more usually associated with practicality and speed, not looks, so it’s perhaps notable that its best looking car was also its first.

Making a credible sports car that fit the strict Kei car rules was not easy, but Suzuki pulled it off; nice to look at, it was a sizzling drive too.

The Model S’s clean, sensuous lines have stood the test of time, and indeed it’s still more or less unchanged 12 years later. Oh, and by delivering a decent drive and range for the first time in an electric car, it changed the world too.

Just 351 examples of this straight-six powered machine were made, but enough to establish it as Japan’s first credible sports car – and a nice looking one too.

The TVRs of the Peter Wheeler years were singularly bold, flaunting almost willfully odd design details that often exposed the big boys for not thinking hard enough. And there was raw beauty to them, too.

Yes indeed, Vauxhall could and did build an aggressive looking coupe once, and to our eyes a rather handsome one too.

The Porsche-esque Karmann Ghia TC is a rare find in Europe. It was built in Brazil in the 1970s but was never officially exported from South America. Designed by Carrozzeria Ghia in Italy, the stylish coupé has a 1584cc flat-four engine slung behind the rear axle.

While it is tempting to give the Volvo award to one of its slab-sided, muscular station wagons, we have to give it to the wonderful P1800, as handsome today as when it was born.