1983 is the year I was born. In the Netherlands. The Opel Kadett, Ford Escort and Volvo 340/360 were the top selling models that year. Of the nearly 460,000 new cars sold in 1983, only 1.5% are still registered today, and only 0.5% are road-worthy, i.e. with valid insurance and the Dutch equivalent of the MOT. Which models are most likely to have survived? That's a trickier question than it perhaps at first appears.
In the early 1980s the build quality and reliability of cars was nowhere near at the levels they are today. Extensive rust problems afflicted virtually all car makers and often caused cars to be written off after only five years or so. And if it was not rust, surely mechanical problems often spelled a premature death for cars that we would consider virtually new today. My dad's 1982 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was written off when just over a year old: starting the engine after an unnoticed oil leak caused it never to run again... Surely, that'd be unacceptable today.
Yet, the question of car survival is not simply a matter of reliability. Good cars are more likely to have been exported; they may survive elsewhere, but will no longer be registered in the Dutch "DVLA", the RDW. Some cars are cheaper and easier to maintain and, even if not particularly reliable, may have greater odds of survival than more reliable, yet more complex cars.
Also, certain models are likely to have accumulated more kilometers more quickly and thus may have been scrapped or exported more often than cars that would typically be used less intensively. Open data initiatives in the Netherlands mean it is possible to answer the question which models are most likely to have "survived", to be still registered and/or to be still road-worthy. As it turns out, there is great variance from the average 1.5% remaining registrations and 0.5% roadworthy cars...
The humble Citroën 2CV - known as the "ugly duckling" in the Netherlands - is by far the most common survivor. Nearly 1 in 5 (18.3%) of the of the 4,900 sold in 1983 are still registered and 1 in 9 (11.1%) are road-worthy as of 2020. Its charming characterful design must have inspired owners to give it the necessary tender love and care, whilst its simple engineering kept maintenance costs in check.
In second place a car with similar profile: the Mini. Just like the 2CV it certainly wasn't the most reliable car, but low mileage, cheap maintenance and the adorable cha-racter mean quite many still roam Dutch roads today: 15.2% of the 3,300 sold new in the Netherlands in 1983 are still registered, but only 4.4% are roadworthy.
The third spot is for the Saab 99. Of the 1200 sold new in 1983, 10.4% are still registered and 4.6% are roadworthy. In its splip stream, in fourth position, we find the Mercedes S-class (the W126 generation): 10.2% remaining registrations and 3.4% roadworthy. Compared to the 2CV and Mini, the Saab 99 and Mercedes S-class are more expensive to maintain, so their survival is more likely due to their solid build and perhaps a limited export market. For example, the Mercedes 190 series and 200/300 series have always been more popular for export to Africa and Eastern Europe, meaning that respectively only 4.4% and 4.8% registrations remain despite similar levels of build quality and reliability to the bigger S-class.
The top-5 is completed by the Volkswagen Golf. Given that the Golf was the fourth most popular car in the Netherlands in 1983, it is also the car of which most survive in absolute numbers. Of the 16,454 Golfs sold in 1983, 8.5% are still registered and 2.8% have valid MOT and insurance. This is remarkably more than its contemporary rivals. Of the best-selling Opel Kadett - with a whopping 35,162 new registrations - only 0.85% remain. The Escort fared even worse, with only 0.63% of the original registered cars remaining. The Dutch have always had a soft spot for their home-built Volvo 340/360 - essentially the successor to the DAF - but again only 0.65% remain. Among other, less popular rivals - Japanese built cars such as the Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sunny and Mazda 323 are as little likely to have survived as European rivals such as the Renault 9/11 and Citroën BX, all of which have between 0.5 and 0.6% remaining registrations. Only the Honda Civic and Mitsubishi Colt (circa 0.9%) fared a little better, and the Fiat Ritmo and Austin Maestro ostensibly worse (circa 0.3%). Only 2 of the 3,683 Talbots Horizon sold new in 1983 are still registered as of 2020, neither of them road-worthy. No surprise then that the Talbot brand itself survived not much beyond 1983...
The full list of cars with higher-than-average survival rates is as follows:
Percentage of remaining registrations of cars registered new in the Netherlands in 1983
Citroën 2CV (18.3%)
Mini (15.2%)
Saab 99 (10.4%)
Mercedes-Benz S-class [W126] (10.2%)
Volkswagen Golf (8.5%)
Opel Manta (6.3%)
Mercedes-Benz 200/300 [W123] (4.8%)
Mercedes-Benz 190 [W201] (4.4%)
Autobianchi A112 (4.0%)
BMW 7-series [E23] (3.9%)
Citroën CX (3.5%)
Alfa Romeo Alfetta (2.8%)
Volvo 240 (2.7%)
BMW 3-series [E21/E30] (2.6%) Saab 900 (2.6%)
Volkswagen Jetta (2.4%)
Ford Granada (2.3%)
BMW 5-series [E28] (2.1%)
Opel Senator (2.0%) Volvo 760 (2.0%)
Rover 2000 (1.8%)
Audi 80 (1.7%) Renault 4 (1.7%) Volkswagen Polo (1.7%)
Data sources: Autoweek Verkoopcijfers, RDW Open Data
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