Are these pioneers, which starred at the 1955 British Motor Show, as exciting now as they were then?

Clubs and coffee shops reverberated to Bill Haley and the exciting new sound of rock ’n’ roll. ITV was launched, Christopher Cockerell patented the hovercraft and Gary Sobers made his test cricket debut for the West Indies. Bird’s Eye invented the fish finger. Steve McQueen appeared on TV for the first time and we said goodbye to James Dean, Albert Einstein and Alexander Fleming. Ill-health forced Churchill to leave Number 10 at the age of 80. Motor sport was rocked by the worst accident it had ever seen at Le Mans, then celebrated when Stirling Moss became the first English winner of the British Grand Prix.

It was 1955, and the motor industry was booming. Production lines that had been turned over to war production just a few years before were re-built and re-equipped and were churning out new machinery at home and abroad. Car makers were gearing up for new models and new markets in Britain, across Europe and further afield and economies were thriving, withcar buyers were queueing up for the latest models. The 40th International Motor Exhibition opened at Earls Court on 19 October against this backdrop and 56 different manufacturers from across the world unveiled their wares. However, four cars stole the limelight for being both bold and innovative.

To get a sense of just how important they were then, and to see how they fare as 21st century classics, we’ve gathered a Bentley’s S1 (which carried over much that was good about the R-type), an MGA (the next generation of MG sports car), a Jaguar 2.4 (the marque’s first compact sporting saloon) and a Citroën DS19.

Each represents evrything that was state of the art back in ’55, and the differences between them underline the freedom that car makers had in the immediate post-war years. Our four of the best include separate chassis and unitary construction, plus everything from pedestrian pushrod ‘fours’ to incredible twin-cam ‘sixes’. Never before – or, arguably, since – had there been so much variety on offer.