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Four of the top ten car models in the UK are British built and British manufacturers as a whole are also faring well, according to a recent survey.

JD Power and What Car? Magazine's 2006 Car Customer Satisfaction Index study showed the British-built Honda Civic and Toyota Avensis to be joint seventh in terms of customer satisfaction, while the Toyota Corolla and the Jaguar S-Type follow in joint ninth.

The survey also showed a decent British presence among the top ten manufacturers, with Oxford-based Mini finishing in joint fifth and Midlands-based Jaguar in seventh, although there were no other British entrants in the entire top 20.

Frank Parisi, director of European automotive research at JD Power, remarked: "Over the past year, customer satisfaction across the industry has improved by five index points.

"The main reason for this is a substantial improvement in satisfaction with the performance of the UK's car dealers when the customer takes their car in to be serviced or repaired. This year, 24 of the 30 ranked brands have shown an improvement in this area which is a very encouraging trend."

The most popular car overall for 2006 is the Lexus IS, which stopped the second-placed Honda Jazz from grabbing the top spot for the third year in a row, while the Suzuki Liana showed a great leap in popularity to take third.

Lexus also showed a huge increase in esteem to attain the status of the UK's favourite manufacturer, ahead of Honda, Skoda, Toyota and finally BMW, which shared fifth with Mini.