WHAT does your car say about you?

Whether you choose to drive a luxury sports car or an environmentally friendly hybrid, it's clear that UK drivers believe a car makes a statement about who is driving it.

That's according to new research conducted by CarGurus, an online automotive site, that found ‘being seen in a nice car' is important to nearly half of the driving population.

Nearly a third of drivers (30 per cent) agree that life is too short to drive a boring car and almost a fifth of men (19 per cent), admitted wanting to own a vehicle that demonstrated to other road users that they could afford an expensive car.

At the other end of the spectrum, 43 per cent of drivers wanted a car that wouldn't make them appear ‘flashy' or a ‘show off', particularly those aged between 25-34 (52 per cent) versus 45-54 year olds (32 per cent).

In fact, 56 per cent of drivers said they'd want to buy a car that is environmentally friendly.

Irrespective of whether you want to buy an expensive car to flaunt your apparent wealth, or a less polluting vehicle to showcase your social conscience, most drivers appear to buy cars for practical activities.

Doing the grocery shopping is among the top three considerations when buying a car (73 per cent), as well as visiting family and friends (74 per cent) and days out/activities (73 per cent).

As part of the research, UK adults were shown a list of the most searched for brands on CarGurus and were asked to pick words that best described their perception of someone who drives a car of that make.

According to the results, Jaguar and Mercedes best conveyed ‘success' (29 per cent and 27 per cent respectively), while BMW was deemed to be flashy by 31 per cent of those surveyed.

Land Rovers were said to convey affluence by 22 per cent of people, while a third of UK adults (33 per cent) believe Ford is for the practical person.