16 indestructible cars which will probably outlive you
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Not so long ago, you’d struggle to coax much more than about 100,000 miles out of your car, but these days it’s not unusual for cars to last for between 250,000 and 300,000 miles, or even more. Despite this though, the, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the average age of a car on the UK roads is just 7.8 years.
Perhaps then we’re scrapping our cars far too soon. Of course, after nearly eight years most of us fancy a change and want to buy something new. But what if you don’t? What if you’d rather buy one car now and keep it for the rest of your life?
Well, to cater for that eventuality, we’ve pulled together a list of the most rugged, dependable and easy-to-fix new and used cars which are most likely to outlive you. Read on…
Mercedes G-Wagen
Developed as a military vehicle at the behest of the Shah of Iran, the Mercedes G-Class, formerly known as the G-wagen or Geländewagen started life as Germany’s answer to the original Land Rover. Mercedes literally went to the ends of the earth to ensure that the G-wagen was as bulletproof as possible, putting it through its paces in both the Sahara Desert and the Arctic Circle. As a result it was used extensively in military service, modified as a Popemobile and is still in production today, 38 years after it first went on sale.
Land Rover Defender
If you count the Defender alongside its predecessors, the Series I, II and III Land Rovers, it was in continuous production from 1948 until 2016. And there was a good reason for this – arguably no car offers the rugged reliability of the Landy. They go on forever, the body panels are easy to replace, the engines easy to service and replace if needed, and because they hold their value so well, relatively few are scrapped.
Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon
Not so much an off-roader as a small town on wheels, if we had to use one word to describe the Land Cruiser Amazon it would be ‘mahoosive’. Driving a Land Cruiser around London gives you some idea what it might be like trying to navigate an oil tanker around the canals of Venice. Naturally, this makes it robust – an ideal car of choice if you were planning on invading a foreign country, for example – and because it’s a Toyota it will never, ever go wrong.
Mercedes-Benz W123
The quintessential Berlin taxi. It’s no coincidence that despite the fact it was launched in 1976, the old W123 is still a popular site on British roads. With uber-reliable petrol and diesel engines, unbreakable drivetrains, and interiors which carry their miles well, the W123 is very much the Bruce Forsyth of German saloons in that it seems to just keep going forever and ever. It’s not unusual to find models with more than 500,000 miles on the clock, plus many were exported to rural parts of Africa which is a testament to their bomb-proof rigidity.
Chevrolet Bel Air
Improving US-Cuban relations may spell an end to the ubiquity of the big old American barge in Havana, but for the last fifty years or so it was illegal in Cuba to buy or sell any cars made after 1960, and a US trade embargo prevented the importation of any new cars to the island. As a result, Cubans had to make their cars last and last by any means necessary, scavenging and improvising spare parts and replacing engines with newer Soviet units. The ’57 Chevy Bel Air was probably the car most subjected to this automotive make-do and mend attitude and is proof that, if you try hard enough, you can make any car last forever.
Lada Riva
There aren’t many cars in automotive history worse than the Lada Riva. Based on the Fiat 124 of the 1960s, Lada decided that to make it more durable they’d build it out of steel six inches thick. This knackered the roadholding, performance, looks and just about every other attribute of the car, but it did make it pretty much bomb proof. Thousands of years from now, long after the human race has died out, all that will be left will be the cockroaches and the Lada Riva.
Toyota Hilux
As Top Gear proved, you can drive the Hilux into a wall, sink it in the Bristol Channel, drop it from a crane and park it on top of an exploding block of flats and it’ll still run. They even drove one to the North Pole. ‘Nuff said.
Volvo P1800
Irv Gordon (pictured) of Long Island, NY, has been driving the same car since 1966. In that time, the car in question – a Volvo P1800 – has racked up 3 million miles. That’s 120 times round the globe or to the moon and back six times. Apparently it’s never broken down and has gone through 857 oil changes, 30 drive belts, 150 points and spark plugs and 120 bottles of transmission fluid.
BMW E30
Beloved of red-braced yuppies for most of the 1980s, the old BMW E30 is now the darling of the bangernomics brigade. Mechanically it’s very simple, making it easy to keep on the road, and it was also built with the kind of Teutonic rigour which ensures that it will keep going long after lesser cars have rusted away or expired in a cloud of smoke.
Honda Accord
Honda really do know how to build a car to last and the Accord is no exception. Strong, refined engines, excellent build quality and durable interiors are hallmarks of the Accord. Sadly, they don’t make up for the fact that it’s a fairly dull car, all told. The Accord might last forever, but realistically would you want it to?
VW Beetle
There aren’t many 80-year-old designs which are still a common site on Britain’s roads, but the Beetle is one of them. Granted, they rust horrendously, but that’s all part of the ownership experience, and thanks to its air-cooled engine, the Beetle is a paragon of automotive simplicity. It’s no surprise that owners love them and equally no surprise that they seem to go on forever.
Volkswagen Golf Mk2
It’s incredible just how well the Mk2 Golf has lasted. I mean, how many 1980s Astras and Escorts do you still see on the roads? When was the last time you saw an Austin Montego or a Peugeot 309? The Golf is still a fairly common site thanks to bank-vault build quality and robust, if relatively uninspiring mechanicals. GTI versions are great to drive, even if many of them have been crashed over the years, but the boggo-spec Golf is still a great choice for those looking for a car to last and last and last.
Subaru Outback
Beloved by farmers across the land, the Subaru Outback is very much a Ronseal car in that it does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s not exciting, cheap, good to look at or nice to drive; it is a tool, a Swiss Army knife designed to help you traverse tricky terrain as easily as possible. And because it’s a Subaru it’ll last forever.
Volvo 240
When a car has been designed to work in the cold, unforgiving climate of Scandinavia, you know it’ll take a standard drizzly British winter in its stride. Perhaps that’s why there are still so many Volvo 240s left in the UK. Fast, it ain’t. Good looking, it ain’t. Economical, it ain’t. In fact, it’s hard to think of many positive adjectives that apply to the Swedish box on wheels, but long-lived it definitely is.
Suzuki Jimny
By most measures the Suzuki Jimny is a fairly awful car. It’s old, the ride is awful, it’s noisy and frankly there’s no good reason for buying one. Unless, that is, you want something which will last. It’s a surprisingly capable little off-roader, the Jimny, and because it’s basic, there’s very little to go wrong.
Peugeot 504
‘Reliability’ and ‘Peugeot’ aren’t words we really associate with each other these days, but there was a time when the French company could do no wrong in its development of bomb-proof motors. Launched way back in 1968, the Peugeot 504 is still going strong in some parts of Africa where owners reckon they’re the most rugged and long-lasting cars money can buy. Easy to fix and blessed with an uncanny ability to cross rough terrain, the 504 has gained a reputation as a workhorse across the developing world, from Brazil to Ghana and from Kenya to Nigeria.