For classic-car owners, roadworthiness testing sits between routine maintenance and public-road responsibility. The available evidence combines recent Great Britain MOT results for broad car classes with older government measurements focused on historic vehicles. Together, the figures show the scale of testing, how often vehicles fail, how little many pre-1960 cars are driven, and what an earlier exemption review projected.
Contents
- What the recent MOT series measures
- MOT volumes across Great Britain
- Initial and final failure rates
- Historic vehicles in the exemption review
- How much historic cars were driven
- Historic-car casualty counts
- Projected effects of exemption
What the recent MOT series measures
The current benchmark is the DVSA series for classes 3 and 4. These classes cover cars, vans and passenger vehicles with up to 12 seats, so the results are useful context for classic cars but are not a classic-vehicle-only dataset. The figures below are for Great Britain and are reported by financial year.
The DVSA distinguishes between two failure measures. The initial fail rate describes the result when vehicles arrive for testing. The final fail rate excludes vehicles that pass after minor-defect rectification at the testing station. That distinction matters when comparing the headline failure outcome with the result after immediate repairs.
The historic-vehicle evidence comes from the government’s Historic Vehicles MOT Exemption Review: Impact Assessment and the related Historic Vehicles MOT government speech. Those measurements are older than the current DVSA series and should be read with their stated years rather than treated as current estimates.
MOT volumes across Great Britain
Initial tests for classes 3 and 4 rose from 30,065,972 in 2019 to 2020 to 30,246,272 in 2020 to 2021. The series then recorded 31,617,600 in 2021 to 2022, 32,543,026 in 2022 to 2023, 32,693,703 in 2023 to 2024, 33,128,617 in 2024 to 2025 and 33,310,534 in 2025 to 2026.
| Great Britain financial year | Initial MOT tests | Passed after station rectification |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 to 2020 | 30,065,972 | 2,147,690 |
| 2020 to 2021 | 30,246,272 | 2,010,367 |
| 2021 to 2022 | 31,617,600 | 1,933,618 |
| 2022 to 2023 | 32,543,026 | 1,943,993 |
| 2023 to 2024 | 32,693,703 | 1,842,550 |
| 2024 to 2025 | 33,128,617 | 1,793,797 |
| 2025 to 2026 | 33,310,534 | 1,733,209 |
The annual count of tests passed after rectification was 2,147,690 in 2019 to 2020, 2,010,367 in 2020 to 2021, 1,933,618 in 2021 to 2022, 1,943,993 in 2022 to 2023, 1,842,550 in 2023 to 2024, 1,793,797 in 2024 to 2025 and 1,733,209 in 2025 to 2026. These are counts of tests, not unique vehicles, and the series is not limited to cars of historic age.
Initial and final failure rates
The recorded initial fail rate was 31.69% in 2019 to 2020, followed by 30.23% in 2020 to 2021, 29.21% in 2021 to 2022, 28.38% in 2022 to 2023, 28.58% in 2023 to 2024, 28.08% in 2024 to 2025 and 27.51% in 2025 to 2026. The corresponding final fail rates were 24.55%, 23.58%, 23.09%, 22.40%, 22.95%, 22.67% and 22.30% respectively.
The underlying failed-initial-test counts were 7,381,548 in 2019 to 2020; 7,132,338 in 2020 to 2021; 7,301,194 in 2021 to 2022; 7,290,101 in 2022 to 2023; 7,502,783 in 2023 to 2024; 7,509,465 in 2024 to 2025; and 7,429,798 in 2025 to 2026. The rate series therefore provides a more comparable measure than counts alone because annual testing volumes changed.
Tests with at least one dangerous item numbered 2,758,892 in 2019 to 2020, 2,568,389 in 2020 to 2021, 2,485,257 in 2021 to 2022, 2,508,791 in 2022 to 2023, 2,572,273 in 2023 to 2024, 2,551,781 in 2024 to 2025 and 41,912 in 2025 to 2026. The final figure is reproduced as reported in the DVSA source and should not be reconciled here with other series elements without the source’s underlying definitions.
Historic vehicles in the exemption review
The government’s historic-vehicle review described a vehicle built or first registered more than 40 years ago as potentially MOT-exempt when it had undergone no substantial changes in the previous 30 years. This is an eligibility description from guidance updated on 19 May 2026, not a measurement of how many vehicles currently qualify.
The review’s 2010 baseline said pre-1960 manufactured vehicles made up 0.6% of 35.2 million licensed vehicles in Great Britain. It estimated that approximately 162,000 pre-1960 manufactured vehicles were required by law to take a statutory MOT test in the 2009–2010 review baseline. Just over 78,000 actually took an MOT test in 2009, and those vehicles accounted for less than 0.3% of all initial MOT tests that year.
These numbers describe different denominators: licensed vehicles, vehicles estimated to be legally required to test, vehicles that actually appeared for a test, and all initial tests. They should not be combined into a single ownership or compliance rate. They do, however, show that the historic-car segment was small within the overall testing system used in the review.
How much historic cars were driven
The 2009 MOT-based sample found a mean annual mileage of 1,460 miles for pre-1960 cars, while the median was 340 miles. The gap between those two measures indicates that a smaller group of higher-mileage cars raised the average above the middle observation.
The same review reported that 63.1% of pre-1960 registered vehicles were driven under 500 miles in 2009. The geography was Great Britain, and the measurement belongs to the 2009 sample. It should not be presented as a current mileage estimate for every classic British car, nor as proof that low use removes the need for safety checks.
For readers comparing the current MOT system with historic-car use, the important distinction is scale and exposure. The recent DVSA series counts tens of millions of class 3 and 4 tests across all relevant vehicle ages. The historic review measured a much smaller pre-1960 population, with most recorded vehicles travelling fewer than 500 miles in the year and a median of 340 miles.
Historic-car casualty counts
The review also recorded road casualty and damage-only accident counts for Great Britain in 2010, grouped by vehicle manufacture or first-registration period. Cars manufactured or first registered in 1945–1959 were involved in 1 fatality, 4 serious injuries, 15 slight injuries and 27 damage-only accidents.
For cars manufactured or first registered in 1920–1944, the corresponding counts were 0 fatalities, 0 serious injuries, 4 slight injuries and 5 damage-only accidents. For cars from before 1920, the counts were 0 fatalities, 1 serious injury, 1 slight injury and 3 damage-only accidents.
| Vehicle period | Fatalities | Serious injuries | Slight injuries | Damage-only accidents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1945–1959 | 1 | 4 | 15 | 27 |
| 1920–1944 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5 |
| Before 1920 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
These are observed counts for 2010, not rates per mile, rates per registered vehicle or a causal assessment of MOT testing. The figures also cover involvement in recorded incidents; they do not establish that a vehicle’s age, testing status or mechanical condition caused any particular outcome.
Projected effects of exemption
The historic-vehicle review included a 10-year impact-assessment scenario for the number of pre-1960 vehicles driven regularly on the highway after MOT exemption. Its low estimate was just over 80,000 vehicles. The best estimate was around 120,000, and the high estimate was just over 160,000.
| Impact-assessment scenario | Projected pre-1960 vehicles driven regularly on the highway |
|---|---|
| Low estimate | Just over 80,000 |
| Best estimate | Around 120,000 |
| High estimate | Just over 160,000 |
Those values are projections, not observed outcomes. They belong to the review’s 10-year scenario and should not be confused with the approximately 162,000 vehicles estimated to be legally required to take a statutory MOT test in the 2009–2010 baseline. One is a scenario estimate of regular highway use after exemption; the other is a baseline estimate of legal testing coverage.
The evidence therefore supports a careful reading of classic-vehicle roadworthiness statistics. Broad MOT results show the scale and failure pattern of Great Britain’s class 3 and 4 testing system. The historic review adds dated evidence on pre-1960 vehicle numbers, mileage, accident involvement and projected exemption exposure, but it does not convert those older measurements into current classic-car failure rates or a modern safety effect.