Vehicles carrying one thousand of the best nuns (10)
I believe the answer is:
carmelites
'best nuns' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'vehicles carrying one thousand of' is the wordplay.
'vehicles' becomes 'cars' (car is a kind of vehicle).
'carrying' is an insertion indicator.
'one' becomes 'me' (a setter might use 'one' to humourously mean 'me').
'thousand of' becomes 'lite' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'me'+'lite'='melite'
'cars' placed around 'melite' is 'CARMELITES'.
'the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for carmelites that I've seen before include "The religious" , "Brothers and sisters" .)