Cars of the England footy stars - now and then | Car Talk - Car News Jun 2016

10:12 Monday 13 Jun 2016

With UEFA Euro 2016 now underway and football fever firmly gripping the nation the question on every England supporter’s lips – apologies to Welsh and Irish fans here - is surely this; what sort of cars do our international footballers drive?

Well, the answer is that footballers’ wheels are now a world away from fifty years ago when England last lifted a major trophy. Today’s millionaire England internationals often have a collection of upmarket motors each. Supercars of the stars include the Ferrari 458’s of Daniel Sturridge and Ryan Bertrand, Jack Wilshere’s Lamborghini Huracan, the £105,000 BMW i8 driven by Wayne Rooney, and James Milner’s Aston Martin DB9. Premier League winner Jamie Vardy celebrated signing a new contract with Leicester City earlier this year by splashing out £168,000 on a new Bentley Continental (below), joining Nathaniel Clyne and keeper Joe Hart.

Jamie Vardy Bentley

More subdued purchases are the Audi S3 of Spurs star Danny Rose, and Marcus Rashford’s Audi RS4, although the latter’s status as a Premier League and England player at least enables him to eschew the Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Corsa you’d expect to see a typical teenager behind the wheel of.

However, there is one undisputed king of the road when it comes to the England stars’ choice of wheels – the Range Rover. The Range Rover was once often dismissed as the ‘Chelsea Tractor’, but there is nothing agricultural about Chelsea defender Gary Cahill’s tuned Overfinch model. Fellow 4x4 fans who can often be seen behind the wheel of Solihull’s finest include Cahill’s England defensive partner John Stones, Kyle Walker, Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana, Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson, and Ross Barkley.

It is a world away from the Three Lions’ stars who lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy at Wembley in 1966. It was only five years since football’s maximum wage had been lifted, before which it would have been a common sight for even top players to rely on public transport to get them to training and matches. As the legendary Sir Bobby Charlton recalled in a 2010 interview with the Daily Express, “There were no Jaguars or any big cars like that back in those days. The money wasn’t there then. You’d be more likely to find a player driving a Ford Cortina.”

1963 ford cortina

Sir Bobby’s memory is not entirely accurate on that score, as World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore – always a cut above both on and off the pitch – did have a Mk2 Jaguar having upgraded from a bold red Ford Zephyr. However, the Ford Cortina was a popular choice amongst the 1966 team with Martin Peters and Gordon Banks joining Bobby Charlton in choosing the family favourite saloon. Ford products accounted for the bulk of the 1966 stars’ cars, with hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst and left-back Ray Wilson driving Zephyr’s, Nobby Stiles a Corsair, and Jack Charlton an Anglia. Alan Ball’s Triumph Herald and Roger Hunt’s Riley Kestrel were rare deviations from the blue oval brand.

The £1,000 bonus received for winning the World Cup enabled one petrolhead in England’s victorious squad to treat himself to a racy new motor. Full-back George Cohen used it to purchase a Brabham-converted Vauxhall Viva - boasting a lowered suspension and straight-through exhaust - tuned by the Surbiton dealership owned by Formula One star Jack Brabham, himself a world champion that year.

If there is one link between the car buying preferences of the current Three Lions squad and those of yesteryear it is that British-built motors remain popular – and long may it continue!