Richard Bremner: 'Today, we're spoilt for choice, but how long will that be true?'

A decade ago, there were 240 new model ranges on sale in Britain. Today, there are 320. In the history of the car, we have never had so much choice. That might seem surprising when you consider that many once popular brands, such as Austin, Hillman, Talbot and Triumph have disappeared, but their numbers have been counterbalanced (though not for the British economy) by the appearance of new makes, including Lexus, Smart, Kia, Daewoo and Hyundai.

What lies behind this is the increasing desire of buyers for individuality. That, and too many cars chase too few customers. Before the 1980s, demand was stronger than supply, making it far easier for the car makers to give us what they thought we needed, namely, very long production runs of the same model. That is how the Ford Cortina came to hold more than 10 per cent of new car sales 25 years ago.

Today, it is a buyer's market. The manufacturers are producing too many cars, each maker convinced they can sell its output more successfully than the company down the road because it has designed a wider variety of more enticing models.

But these makers face a big challenge; modern buyers are harder to excite, and they switch brands as readily as they change underwear, even if they have had a happy experience with the car they are switching out of.

To counter this, the manufacturers are trying to make more desirable cars, despite struggling with the conundrum of creating individual products from mass production processes that are hardly compatible with this aim. They add these variations although they cost them billions to add three or four more ranges to a catalogue that might once have run to no more than six models at most. That is what it takes to compete in 2003.

And this is why we are being offered cars as diverse as the Ford StreetKa, the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Citroën Pluriel and the Volkswagen Touareg, each of them - roadster, mini-MPV, hatchback-cum-roadster-cum-pick-up, and off-roader - an example of how the market is fragmenting to provide a wider choice.

A decade ago, it would have been impossible to imagine any of these manufacturers offering specialist models. Now, every manufacturer dreams of inventing new kinds of car that will sell by the thousand, as Renault has with its Megane Scenic people-carrier, an invention that created a new vehicle category, as did the bigger Renault Espace before it. Few makers manage a feats like this, but many have done well out of creating varieties new to them, if not the whole market.

So, is all this choice a good thing? Well, it is when it produces such desirables as the new Mini, the BMW X5, the Mazda RX8 and the Audi TT, as well as the ultra-practical Scenic. But it does make choosing harder. Some buyers probably never discover that their ideal wheels actually exist. And there is plenty of chaff out there, including the Ford Fusion and the Renault Vel Satis, reinventions that have not quite worked.

But it may not stay that way. The car market, like every other, is about survival of the fittest, and there will, eventually, be fewer manufacturers. If they think they can satisfy their sales ambitions with fewer model ranges, you can be sure they will.