In the 90s, cars from the 70s and 60s were seen as classic, but in 2022 cars from the 90s or 2000s can still be seen in daily use, and in terms of body design, many don’t even look that far off modern cars. What happened around the late 80s?

Question

Edit: great responses, Reddit. People have largely addressed the form factor aspect of my question. But am I wrong in sensing that cars from the late 90s seem to be more reliable and functionally acceptable in 2022, than most cars from the 70s were in the 90s? Was there some engineering breakthrough that made them more long lived?

In: 91

Answer 1

Improvements in reliability is probably the major factor. In USA in 1990, the average age of cars on the road was 7.6 years. Today is 12.3 years.

In 1990, nobody wanted to drive a 1970s car. They were slow, unreliable, inefficient, and had probably rusted away. It just wasn’t worth the effort keeping them on the road unless it was something really special.

Now, a 20 year old is probably just fine. It’ll probably be on it’s 4th or 5th owner. But for somebody without a lot of money, it’ll get them around.