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I'll admit to being a bit of a fan of both, but I do notice that there are plenty of 205s around, and also 405s. Both were big sellers, so it's not too surprising, but fairly tidy 205s on a D/E/F/G reg are quite common round here, and I guess more so in less prosperous parts.
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The subject of "rotboxes" has always been a source of confusion and amusement to me.
Have a look at the cars people consider to be rustbuckets. Old Nissans, Fiats, Fiestas. So how come there are quite a number old examples of these still about, Nissans in particular?
Everyone used to go on about the old box-shape Micra being a rusty old shed. Yet there seem to be more 20 year old box-Micras about than pretty much anything else, and that's despite not all that many of them being sold in the first place.
"They" always refer to the Hyundai Accent and Elantra as being rot-prone as well -- yet has anyone actually seen a rusty example? I know I haven't -- and the oldest examples are old enough now (M-Reg) for the problem to manifest itself. Battered, yes. Missing bits of trim, certainly. Rusty, nope.
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These days it's not rust that kills most cars though - and there are some cars which only rust in some hard to find, but critical places. Golf Mk3s are an example. I had one that looked superb, but was a write off due to the rust underneath.
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One of the well known car magazines got figures from the DVLA to compile a list of the 10 top shrinking cars. The most memorable example is the MK2 Cavalier, with only 1% of them left.
In my memory the early '80's were crazy times (bear in mind I was born in 1980) my dads ford escort estate had body rust you could stick your fingers through and bumpers held on with wire. I think the car had rusted through a small section of the footwell too. You won't find a car like that today because MOT standards have consigned a lot of cars to the scrap heap.
-----------------------------------------------
Torque means nothing without RPM
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What's that LandRover claim - 50% of those ever built are still in use? A bit skewed by newer ones obviously.
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>>50% of those ever built are still in use
Mostly as chicken runs by farmers ;-)
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The most memorable example is the MK2 Cavalier, with only 1% of them left.
This is another car that tended to look outwardly OK but rot terminally from within. My (then) 12 year old SRI looked really tidy, but peel the boot carpet back around the rear strut top mounts, or peer at the sill to floor welds, and it was a different matter.
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Apparently over 70% of Porsches manufactured still exist!
As for Vauxhall still not much better today hearing of Early Vectras & Calibras with structural rust.
Worst I ever heard of is a Mk2 Triumph 2000 that failed its first MOT at 3 years because of rusty sills!
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You had to do your own rustproofing back then ....
Over the Christmas break I saw a very nice & very original 1976 Dolomite 1850 at Lyme Park. I wandered over and looked, it was patina'd and obviously hadn't been resprayed from new. In the rear window was a faded, peeling Ziebart sticker, which explained why it was still going!
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I remember my father covering vast holes in the doors bottoms of our Triumph 2.5PI with newspaper and spraying it white! Car must have been 5/6 years old at the most.
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205s and 405s I see a plenty, but can't remember the last time I saw a 309. The last car I seem to remember with terminal rust at 3 - 4 years old was the Panda.
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I don't recall seeing many 309's even when they were current. Unusually for a Peugeot it was butt-ugly.
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I have seen it said (perhaps even by HJ?) that the late 80's Micra was design to only last a few years, I know of an '89 one going strong though they are sooo flimsy and make a '80 Metro or '84 205 seem like a tank.
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It is easy to make sure a model dies after 10-12 years...ignoring rust.
Just ensure some model specific parts are manufacturer supplied only or design it so they fail after 100k miles or so an dthe replacement costs are> car's value.
Think of modern diesles using fluid based systems to meet emission standards and refill costs of £300+. Who would want to spend that on a 10-15 years old Peugeot 307 HDI.
madf
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There is a very nice white 309 going around here in Sunderland. I don't think they were ugly, I had one in a darkish red colour that was very nice looking. I don't think they can have all rotted away as my 309 seemed to have that "built like a tank" feel that older Peugeots had but which has now been lost.
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It was certainly a far better car than the Horrendous Horizon that it replaced back in 1985.
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Sorry, should have added IMHO when I commented on the 309's alleged ugliness. :-)
I think the 205 and 405 are still very good looking cars even today, but I never thought the 309 was attractive, even back then.
Of course it was a good car in terms of what it did. This was the first diesel I ever drove that I thought was worthy of mention in the same sentence as its petrol siblings. It was the non-turbo version as well, but I remember thinking "I could live with this" at a time when a drive in a diesel Escort or Astra had me clambering to get out after half a mile. :-)
Cheers
DP
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I still see a 309 every day, and it is still an ugly car! What people forget is that it was 90% designed by Chrysler as a replacement for the Horizon and was so far along that Peugeot could not cancel it when they bought the company. They could only adjust its looks to make it look more Peugeot-y.
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I was looking on the RAC website to see which of my old cars is still running :
www.rac.co.uk/web/vehiclechecks/dvla_lookup/
I was very surprised to see that my 1984 2CV is still going. Now on its 9th owner. I bought it new and it was starting to rust after 18 months. I can't imagine what original bodywork is left.
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Well, given that I tend to run cars in 'bangernomics' mode I wasn't too surprised that very few of my card have survived, however it was a pleasant surprise to see that my 1990 3 litre Carlton estate, which I wrote off 6 years ago with 196K on the clock, is still registered, and seems to be on its 6th owner - I was number 3.
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If you want to see lots of cars that disappeared elsewhere years ago, go to Boston in Lincolnshire. I am always amazed at the number of Triumph Acclaims, Mini Metros(sic), Allegros, and Ford Escorts of a certain vintage. In nearby Coningsby, I saw my dad's old Rumbelows Escort estate (yellow A reg.) It was still soldiering on, long after he had considered it past its best (he bought it when made redundant in 86). It was exceedingly rusty though.
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Well I never, all 3 of the cars I've written off in the last 12 years are all still registered, including the cavalier 'commander' mk2 I wrote off in 1995, there can't be many of them left ( although I suppose 1% of a big number is still quite a big number).
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I often wonder how much I have spent buying cars since and if I had kept that old Viva what a story that would have been.
Not seen a Viva for ages, but I saw one in evening rush hour traffic a week or so ago. It was dark but the car looked to be in v. good condition with bright orange paint, obviously been restored and resprayed. IIRC it was an L-reg., being driven by a young bloke with a TomTom on the dashboard. It looked quite quaint swapping lanes between all the modern stuff.
Is it just me or does it look funny when you see an old car with no head rests on the front seats, so from behind you see a full head and shoulders of the driver and passenger!? Modern cars almost totally conceal the driver from behind.
Is there a website where you can check numbers of a specific model still registered, or is that info. not in the public domain?
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All mine are dead. The 1986 Cav SRI was on its last legs when I sold it 9 years or so ago to some dodgy looking bloke for £80 cash with a short ticket on it. Looking at him, if he even registered it I'd be amazed, although I did see it a couple of years later. Would have needed reshelling or half a tonne of replacement metal welding into it to get it through another ticket, so my guess is he hadn't bothered.
1976 Mini - dead
1983 Sierra - dead (knew this already)
RIP - all were my favourite and most treasured possessions in their day.
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Having gone through my entire track record on cars it seems that every car I've owned in the last 21 years* is still ""alive"". Given that they've all had well over 100K on them when I've got rid of them that says something about the longevity of Vauxhalls ;-)))
* 2 cavalier mk2s, 1 mk3, 1 Carlton, 2 Omegas
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I have owned a total of 9 vehicles in my motoring life since 1966 (not counting ones bought only for spares). 5 of them are still in use, 3 owned by me.
1954 Triumph Mayflower - dead
1948 Triumph Roadster - alive
1961 LandRover - dead
1972 LandRover - alive
1974 Renault 4 - dead
1983 Volvo 240 - dead
1993 Volvo 240 - my daily driver
1964 Triumph 2000 - my other daily driver
1949 Ferguson tractor - regularly in use
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I see very few Sierras these days, considering how many were sold.
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I don't think you can realy define a car's lifespan - all all depends on the cost of labour/parts against the cost/availability of a replacement car.
The old American classics running around Cuba are probably a prime example of this.
With the cost of UK based labour getting higher all the time, vs cheap manufacturing abroad, the average lifespan of a car will surely get shorter, even if the car is made to a higher quality.
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What will define a modern car's lifespan, now that corrosion is a minor problem, is a modern car's electronics and overly complicated control systems. I imagine that when my car and similar are, say, 10 years old I will be pitying the poor devils that have to sort out the myriad of problems besetting them.
My poor neighbour's Golf, which he bought a few months before mine, still spends at least 50% of its time at the garage as they don't know how to sort out the problem it has which prevents it from running at it full potential.
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My 1965 Ford Zodiac Mk 3 went from show room to scrap yard in 8 yrs due to rust.
My 84 Mazda 626 lasted over 14 yrs and my 92 626 I sold last year without any signs of rust on body what so ever
Dave
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My last 3 cars seem to still be going - bit surprised about one of them. Presumably this search relies on cars actually being declared as scrapped.
--
Mattster
Boycott shoddy build and reliability.
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One of the first replies to the Op was spot on - cheap steel and designed-in rust traps - this killed off most cars prior to the 1980s
My dad bought a new (British built) Capri II 1.6XL in 1975, it was rusting by 1978 and he chopped it in for an ex demo 1978 2.0 Ghia - far superior he said because the Ghias were built in Cologne...
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Presumably this search relies oncars actually being declared as scrapped. --
No - the DVLA database gives their current tax status.
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I see very few Sierras these days, considering how many were sold.
I see one every day : )
Recently I have noticed it is mainly estates running around,in fact saw one yesterday a year older than mine.Also,amazingly,P 100s(the pickup).Perhaps kept going,as my estate is,because they make durable workhorses.
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I see a Sierra almost every day as well. The guy next door has one. Its the old Mk1( the one with the square headlights) Ghia 2.8 4X4. He took me out in it for a spin once - very scary.
I believe that old Sierras are quite desirable, especially the Mk1 models. I always wanted one as a kid and I still want one now ;-)
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No-one's mentoned the famous ford 6 digit mile counter though, when everyone else had 7; they obviously thought that their cars wouldn't get to 100,000 miles. And it's a wonder half of them did.
I still avoid the Ford badge based on the heinous mk4 Escort and dull as dishwater Fiesta i used to drive as firm cars.
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I believe that old Sierras are quite desirable, especially the Mk1 models. I always wanted one as a kid and I still want one now ;-)
I would still rate mine as the most reliable and durable car I have ever owned.
Cheers
DP
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I forgot to include 1972 Triumph Stag - still running
1974 Saab 96 - still running
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