Website Lists Family Cars Vanishing From U.K. Roads
A number of these cars had more than a million made, and yet there only are hundreds, or dozens, left.
Family cars that flooded the U.K. market during the last half of the 21st century are disappearing at warp-speed.
Editors at the HonestJohn.co.uk car-advice website scrolled through government registrations from 1950 to 1995 and then looked at how many still are running today.
Managing Editor Keith Adams says the selection of vanishing models is fascinating.
“Pretty much all of them littered the U.K. roads as recently as 10 years ago, and now, you'll be lucky to spot one at a classic-car meeting,” he says in a statement.
The scary thing, he says, is the low survival rate. A number of these cars had more than a million made, and yet there only are hundreds – or dozens – left.
“Even the least-endangered car on our list has a survival rate of less than 1%,” Adams says.
“One other factor to emerge from this list is that the 1980s cars are particularly vulnerable, because their passage into popular classic status is yet to happen and their disappearance has been hastened by needless scrappage and artificially low market values in recent years.”
Heading the list of the 20 fastest-disappearing family cars is the Austin Allegro. It had a production run of 640,000 units between 1973 and 1982, but only 291 still are registered. Other Austin models on the list are the Montego, Princess, Maxi, Metro, Maestro and Ambassador.
The Ford Cortina, the U.K.’s best-selling car between 1973 and 1980 with more than 4 million built, is 12th on the list with only 5,411 still remaining.
The website also lists the cars with the best survival rate. At the top is the Lotus Elan, with 2,151 still on the roads out of 8,955 built between 1962-1974 and 1989-1994. Another 1,210 have statutory off-road notification, meaning the owners do not use their vehicles on a public road. The two categories combined give a 37.5% survival rate.
Other survivors: Triumph Stag (25% remaining); Reliant Scimitar (21%); Aston Martin V8 (21%); Lotus Europa (20%); Aston Martin DB5 (19%): Aston Martin DB6 (18%); Daimler SP250 Dart (17%); Aston Martin DBS (155); and Triumph TR5 (13%).
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