By Andrew English and David Williams Published: 9:27AM GMT 31 Dec 2009  Jenson Button's performance at Brazilian Grand Prix in October that had millions on the edges of their seats as he became the 10th British Formula 1 World Champion Photo: GETTY IMAGES  With most of our working lives at Telegraph Motoring involving the close scrutiny of time and distance, we should point out that it has only been 10 years since we were partying like it was 1999 and worrying that our engine computers would catch a fatal dose of millennium bug.  Still, that is just about time enough for an original Mini to accelerate from 0-60mph and while Sir Alec Issigonis's masterpiece drove stiff-jointedly out of production after 41 years in 2000, by March of the same year it was hello to the new (BMW) MINI and the cleverest piece of estate-agent marketing ever seen.  But wait a moment, weren't small cars supposed to get cleverer and more frugal than the all-steel retromeister MINI? The new millennium ushered in Audi's all-aluminium 94mpg A2 model and Fiat's brilliant plastic-bodied 97mpg Ecobasic.  Both concepts were supposed to revolutionise our motoring, yet the Fiat never made it into production and the loss-making A2 lasted just five years before VW pulled the plug. Instead we got the Fiat Cinquecento, Hyundai i10 and Ford Ka: they had funky styling, sure, but were as plain as mustard under their pressed steel coachwork.  Another great idea of the decade includes Toyota's Formula One team, which was announced in 2000 but joined Honda's and BMW's disbanded F1 teams at the end of this season.  The future of the British Grand Prix was until this week in doubt, but Britain was suffering a barren patch of world F1 champions at the beginning of the decade. Not so at the end, with this year's champion Jenson Button succeeding the meteoric Lewis Hamilton.  At the end of the last century The Allman Brothers's Jessica would ring out at the start of half an hour of fun-packed, televisual motoring fun presented by Jeremy Clarkson and then James May.  A lot of water under the bridge and a major redesign later, we have Top Gear in a hangar, presented by, erm, Jeremy Clarkson and James May, plus Richard Hammond in a leather safari jacket borrowed from William Woollard – tout a changé, mais rien n'a changé.  Only slightly more controversial than an off-the-cuff Clarkson aside was the central London congestion charge, bulldozed through by mayor Ken Livingstone in 2003.  It was extended to include a sizeable chunk of west London in 2007 – a charge too far, residents say, and Ken's replacement Boris Johnson is likely to withdraw it next year.  Despite that setback for the advocates of congestion charging, London's scheme is still one of the world's largest and has been examined from every angle by other capital cities and local authorities – although they haven't exactly rushed to launch their own.  Its effects on traffic, air pollution and congestion are still hotly debated, although it's undisputed that London's scheme is still heavily dependent on income from penalties and fines.  Similar projects are under consideration in other major conurbations throughout Britain, while revenue raisers across the land are excited by the prospect of charging for road use according to the priority of the route and time of travel.  At the beginning of the century we were looking forward to the launch of Rover's 75 Touring estate, a handsome shooting-brake that sold well and is still much prized by its owners. As to its maker, it's now official that four businessmen made millions out of the livelihoods of MG Rover's British workers and their pensions.  The Longbridge production lines were spirited off to Nanjing in China and the question of who owned (and owns) what is still being argued. The skilled jobs have all gone, as have those at West Midlands van maker LDV in what some see as an evisceration of the heart of car-making Britain.  As Bernd Pischetsrieder, then BMW's chief executive, told The Daily Telegraph in 1999: "You British are involved in an interesting experiment of basing your economy on cutting each other's hair, you will excuse us in Germany if we keep our manufacturing jobs."  Not that the British can't build cars, as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Vauxhall, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley and Morgan will attest.  In fact, British car plants are some of the most efficient in the world. And in some ways it is the new century's most important discovery, the environmental threat of climate change, that might point the future to a new lease of life for Britain's car manufacturers.  With Land Rover and Jaguar investing in new hybrid technology, Ford building fuel-efficient diesels in its Dagenham plant, the extended-range Vauxhall Ampera being considered for Ellesmere Port, the new Nissan lithium-ion battery factory in Tyne and Wear or even the Morgan Life car, there is still a healthy spark in Britain's motor industry.
The first decade of the 21st century has brought seminal changes to the way    cars are used and viewed. We look back at a few key moments.