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V1.293 What is a motor car for VAT purposes?

'Motor car' means any motor vehicle of a kind normally used on public roads which has three or more wheels, meets one or other of the conditions, and does not fall within the exceptions, set out below¹.

The expression 'any motor vehicle of a kind normally used on public roads', construed as a whole and in its ordinary sense, points to the broad classes of motor vehicles normally used on public roads, eg saloon cars, estate cars and sports cars. Even if the expression is more narrowly construed, continental versions of saloon cars are vehicles which are 'normally used on public roads'². In Sixth Gear³, HMRC accepted, prior to the hearing of the appeal, that a Lamborghini Murcielago two-seater sports car was not a 'motor vehicle of a kind normally used on public roads', since its suspension 'was programmed solely for track use'.

It is the physical attributes of a vehicle, and nothing