ARE 70s CARS DYING OUT?

While you can almost always count on classic car enthusiasts to keep old vehicles going, it seems that some vehicles of the early 70s are becoming less and less popular.

According to statistics from review site weloveanycar.com, certain brands of early 70s cars seem to be dying out. There are only 22 Bond Bugs, 161 Austin Allegros and 3,482 Ford Cortinas still registered to be used on the UK’s roads.

This is in spite of the fact that it is drivers who were born in the 60s and 70s who make up the biggest group of vehicle users in the UK and these cars will have been recognisable in their youth. What’s more, there was a time when the Ford Cortina was the most popular car on the road.

In total, 2.6 million Cortinas were sold in the UK, which means that only 0.1 per cent of these previously popular cars are still usable on the roads.
Meanwhile, the car’s successor, the Ford Sierra, saw 1.3 million sold in the UK and now 4,119 remain on the country’s roads.

However, weloveanycar.com did note that there may be a number of these seemingly rare cars in collections rather than in use. The survey does not include vehicles that have been taken off the roads and had a SORN notice sent to the DVLA.

For example, it is thought that there may be more Austin Allegros in classic car collections than there are registered for use on the roads.

However, cars built slightly later than these still can be a rarity on the roads. For example, of the Renault Fuego, which was released in the 70s, there are only 19 left on the roads.
The amount of past Renault cars on the roads seems to be rather varied. For instance, although the Espace was a popular car, it was unable to achieve the same success seen by the Avantime. Nevertheless, there are 23,049 Espace car still in use on the road while Avantime numbers have dwindled to 273.

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