Forget about looking like your pet -research suggests that more than 14million drivers resemble their four-wheeled friends.

Hundreds of brand new models will be on show at ExCeL London in July, so the British International Motor Show team and Lloyds TSB Insurance, commissioned research to look at the decision process in car buying, specifically, image and the cars we buy.

Results showed that while three quarters of us (75per cent) think it is important that the car we drive suits our personality, nearly half (48per cent) also think they or someone they know actually resembles their car.

Many of us choose a car to reflect an image of the type of person we are - or perhaps what we'd most like to be.

A fun image is important to a third of us (34per cent) whilst one in five (20per cent) hope to project a successful personality.

We also want our four-wheeled friends to make us look sensible (17per cent) and cool (12per cent) whilst a surprisingly low number of people want a sexy image (3per cent).