The "They forgot to stop making them" thread

[Timewaster]

I think the 1990 Rover Metro was a decent job for a facelift and the new mechanicals a massive improvement albeit 5 years overdue. 

The only downside was the physical size. 

But 6 years later when they stuck a Rover grill on it and called it a 100 with poncey model names like Kensington (like the one I had) the world had moved on and it just looked ancient against competition like the K11 Micra and Mk4 Fiesta. 

The only people still buying them were Sid and Dorris types. 

[ProgRocker]

Nissan Sunny B12 estate and van. They carried on selling them after the Sunny N13 was launched.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by ProgRocker
photo formatting

[AndyW201]

2 hours ago, Timewaster said:

I think the 1990 Rover Metro was a decent job for a facelift and the new mechanicals a massive improvement albeit 5 years overdue. 

The only downside was the physical size. 

But 6 years later when they stuck a Rover grill on it and called it a 100 with poncey model names like Kensington (like the one I had) the world had moved on and it just looked ancient against competition like the K11 Micra and Mk4 Fiesta. 

The only people still buying them were Sid and Dorris types. 

And me! (I was 21 in 1996 when I got mine!🤣)

[dozeydustman]

Bit bleedin obvious this one but the Cortina P100 pickup was still being made well after the Sierra was current. Did the Sierra based P100 make it well into the age of the Mondeo?

[dozeydustman]

Renault 9 and 11 still being made in 2000 in Turkey, despite the 19 starting and finishing and superceded by the Mégane 

[bunglebus]

28 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

Bit bleedin obvious this one but the Cortina P100 pickup was still being made well after the Sierra was current. Did the Sierra based P100 make it well into the age of the Mondeo?

No it was killed off with the Sierra

[Richard_FM]

34 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

Renault 9 and 11 still being made in 2000 in Turkey, despite the 19 starting and finishing and superceded by the Mégane 

Turkey seemed to be a favourite place for tooling to he taken to once a car has gone out of production.

I remember seeing some Toafas badged Fiat Regattas when I was there, along with a lot of Renault 12s & odd looking saloon Clios as well as the 9s & 11s.

I also saw an Adadol made Ford Cortina Mk5, but didn't see any of the Mk4 Escorts they made.

[Madman Of The People]

On 9/25/2020 at 12:10 PM, Madman Of The People said:

In Canada, you could still buy a new Mk IV VW Golf and Jetta even though the new Mk V was already on sale.

The City Golf and City Jetta continued in Canada (with slight styling tweeks) throughout the newer Mk V production run.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Volksy]

I believe that the Peugeot 504 was assembled in Nigeria up until 2006, meaning it outlasted the 505 & 605

[Norbert]

11 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Bit bleedin obvious this one but the Cortina P100 pickup was still being made well after the Sierra was current. Did the Sierra based P100 make it well into the age of the Mondeo?

By a year or so - lasted to 1994, so maybe just left over stock. 

 

[adw1977]

11 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Bit bleedin obvious this one but the Cortina P100 pickup was still being made well after the Sierra was current.

Not only still being made after the launch of the Sierra, it was actually launched in the UK after the Sierra!

This brochure appears to be the launch issue and it's dated December 1982:

Flickr link to full brochure

[dozeydustman]

18 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

Not only still being made after the launch of the Sierra, it was actually launched in the UK after the Sierra!

This brochure appears to be the launch issue and it's dated December 1982:

Flickr link to full brochure

Wasn’t it previously known as the Ford 1-tonner in mk3 and Mk4 shapes? I think it was a South African only until the Mk4

[MondeoBlues]

You could buy a new Austin Maestro in China as recently as 2007, the Rover Streetwise was being sold as the MG 3SW until 2011, the Rover 75 was knocking about until 2016, and you can still buy a new Austin Montego estate if you ask for a YEMA F12. 

[sierraman]

15 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

Turkey seemed to be a favourite place for tooling to he taken to once a car has gone out of production.

I remember seeing some Toafas badged Fiat Regattas when I was there, along with a lot of Renault 12s & odd looking saloon Clios as well as the 9s & 11s.

I also saw an Adadol made Ford Cortina Mk5, but didn't see any of the Mk4 Escorts they made.

Also the Fiat Argenta seemed to live a long life there. Went to Turkey about 13-14 years ago and there were loads of Renault 11 and the Fiat Mirafiori shape Tofas. Didn’t see any Otosan Cortinas sadly, think they lasted until 1993 there with bits of Orion tacked on. 

[BorniteIdentity]

On 9/26/2020 at 12:14 AM, Spiny Norman said:

At the other end of the scale to the Ladas and Hillman Hunters is this, the stalwart of processions both mayoral and funereal. the Daimler DS420 launched in the 60s. The old style Rolls Royce Phantom was listed until the early 90s too.

 

Absolutely gorgeous. Had a 1984 car for our wedding day - felt like the Queen Mum! 

It is the only land whale that really turns me on - had no idea they made them so late! 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

The XJ-S arrived to , at best, a lukewarm welcome in 1975 . Quality problems and strikes almost killed it off , its own XJ12 Coupe was, and still is, lauded as the more attractive better car. But it soldiered on for 21 years with sales steadily increasing. 
The 3.0Cs e9 was still on sale when the XJ-S was first announced but within 6 months the highly praised 6 was announced and for its entire production span was often the loser in magazine tests, the 8 series that follows in 1990 was a massively more technically advanced and positioned further upmarket than the Jag, still found itself on the occasional losing end of a road test. The combined sales of the 6 and 8 series came to about 125,000, the Jag 115,000- maybe because the 8 series carried on for 3 years after the , by then XJ-S.
it also gave its floorpan ( dating community 1968 ) and other bits to the DB7 and XK8, of course.

The other big competitor , the 1978 Porsche 928 lasted until 1995 and managed slightly more than half the Jags sales, no wonder they kept making it for so long.

[quicksilver]

On 9/25/2020 at 8:07 PM, Norbert said:

I bet folk in 1970 thought that by 2000 Longbridge would be producing something akin to George Jetson's car - complete with flying abilities. Also, wasn't the A35 van still about in 1970 (or only recently discontinued )...

A35 van was discontinued in 1968 and replaced by the Austin-badged version of the Morris Minor van, actually an older design than the one it replaced!

[HMC]

Daimler ds 420 still being knocked together as late as 1992. About the same time as the jaguar s3 v12- toward the end of its successors model cycle. Maybe those memos got lost in the post about wrapping up production; but they both filled a (small) niche. 

[HMC]

Actually wasn’t there some sort of scenario where the Launch xj40 engine bay was deliberately dimensioned to sabotage shoe horning the V12 in? Could easily be pub lore as they belatedly did manage it (1993ish?)

[HMC]

2 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

The XJ-S arrived to , at best, a lukewarm welcome in 1975 . Quality problems and strikes almost killed it off , its own XJ12 Coupe was, and still is, lauded as the more attractive better car. But it soldiered on for 21 years with sales steadily increasing. 
The 3.0Cs e9 was still on sale when the XJ-S was first announced but within 6 months the highly praised 6 was announced and for its entire production span was often the loser in magazine tests, the 8 series that follows in 1990 was a massively more technically advanced and positioned further upmarket than the Jag, still found itself on the occasional losing end of a road test. The combined sales of the 6 and 8 series came to about 125,000, the Jag 115,000- maybe because the 8 series carried on for 3 years after the , by then XJ-S.
it also gave its floorpan ( dating community 1968 ) and other bits to the DB7 and XK8, of course.

The other big competitor , the 1978 Porsche 928 lasted until 1995 and managed slightly more than half the Jags sales, no wonder they kept making it for so long.

I think I remember reading sometime around 1980 stopping XJS production (or maybe temporarily mothballing it?) was at least discussed as the numbers simply didn’t add up at the time.

[quicksilver]

14 minutes ago, HMC said:

Actually wasn’t there some sort of scenario where the Launch xj40 engine bay was deliberately dimensioned to sabotage shoe horning the V12 in? Could easily be pub lore as they belatedly did manage it (1993ish?)

Don't know about that but there's a myth that the XJ40 was deliberately designed so the Rover V8 wouldn't fit, to preserve the purity of Jaguar by using their own engines. What really happened according to AROnline is that the XJ40 engineers told their superiors the V8 wouldn't fit, they were believed and no one bothered to check, and allegedly the Rover engine will actually fit.

[dozeydustman]

According to Wikipedia, Ashok Leyland are still producing the PD3 series Leyland Titan bus.

[dozeydustman]

Although no direct Ford badged replacement in Western Europe (it’s the Iv*co Eurocargo) the Ford Cargo is still being produced in Turkey, India and South America.

[hairnet]

Ford galaxy

The rented one I have is an 18 or 19 and ford.de have 20s on their site

Bro in law bought an 09 one with the 2.5 Volvo engine in it new and my one is just a facelift of that one with more kit and more modern engines bit like the MK4 polo they just updated the basic design from 96 till 2014 was it?

[Alfa botherer]

I’m surprised there has been no mention of top autoshite the Daewoo Espero or Daewoo Nexia yet.  Because all Vauxhall’s are shite, even when they are a Daewoo.
 

As we know, the Espero was based on the Mk2 Cavalier/Opel Asconda platform and went on ‘till ‘97. I’m thinking the Vectra nameplate arrived in the UK in ‘95? So the Espero outlasted the mk3 cav/ Vectra A by a couple of years. 

The Nexia (nee Cielo) was based on the mk2 Astra and also lasted ‘tll ‘97 in the UK. I think the mk3 Astra went on longer than that. 

However my really half arsed research, (skim reading Wikipedia)  suggests licence built Nexia’s were built as recently as 2016, possibly in an Uzbekistani factory? If that’s true then it outlasts, by my count, 4 generations of Astra.

[martc]

51 minutes ago, Alfa botherer said:

However my really half arsed research, (skim reading Wikipedia)  suggests licence built Nexia’s were built as recently as 2016, possibly in an Uzbekistani factory? If that’s true then it outlasts, by my count, 4 generations of Astra.

Well here's a gold mine of old stuff still being made; by UzAvtoMotors nee GM Uzbekistan. They use the brand name, wait for it, Ravon as well as Chevrolet. Ravon apparently means a clam, straightforward journey in Uzbeki, and not something your dodgy uncle does at a family knees up.

Still in production -

Ravon Spark R2, which replaced this in 2018, the Ravon Spark R1

I can't comment on what they outlasted but they have certainly forgotten to stop making them.

See here, under avtomobillar, for lots more old new chod  https://uzautomotors.com/

 

[Richard_FM]

I heard that the Peykan only ended production when the Iranian government agreed to fund a replacement, as people still wanted to buy them in spite of the design being nearly 50 years old.

[Ghosty]

Jag stuff is a good point actually - in Daimler form the S3 XJ lasted until late 1992 - the last S3 Double Six was K plate, the XJ40 having been introduced in 1986 on D plate.

Similarly, the DS420 meant that the 4.2 litre version of the old XK6 engine that had been made in some form since 1949 also lasted until 1992, in everything else it was replaced by the AJ16 when the XJ40 came in in 1986.

[Madman Of The People]

I thought some of you might be interested in some YankShite they forgot to stop making.

In 1982, General Motors introduced it's new front drive "A-Body" platform.  The A-Body spawned the Chevrolet Celebrity, Pontiac 6000, Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, and Buick Century.  For most of the 1980's, the A-body cars formed the backbone of GM's mid-sized offerings.  However, by the end of the decade, newer and fresher models arrived to replace the A-Bodies.  As the new "W-Body" cars were rolled out, they began to replace the now dated looking A-Bodies.

The Chevrolet Lumina saloon replaced the Celebrity, a four-door Grand Prix replaced the 6000 at Pontiac, a freshly downsized Cutlass Supreme ostensibly took over from the Cutlass CIera and a similarly reconfigured Regal did the same at Buick.  However, for reasons I can not begin to fathom, GM continued to keep the A-Body Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera and Buick Century in production several years after their W-Body replacements arrived in showrooms.

As late as 1996, you could still buy these old nails shown below.  They were little changed from the cars first introduced in 1982.

 

Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

 

Buick Century.

 

[Walter White]

Volkswagen, in the UK market the mark one Golf was still sold as Cabriolet and Caddy  after the mark two Golf was launched. 

I guess that was possible through Golf 1 production continuing for other markets such as South Africa.