28 short-lived classic cars

Short, but sweet

Many cars built in the 20th century were manufactured across several decades. Notable examples include the Mini, the Citroën 2CV and the Volkswagen Beetle.

Others had very short production lives, which we’re defining here as lasting for no more than three calendar years, and now we are giving these classic cars a chance to shine.

There are more examples of this than you can shake a stick it, so in restricting ourselves to just 28 we’re able to present a remarkable variety of short-lived classics, in alphabetical order. Enjoy!

1. Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

Several of the cars on this list are homologation specials, created simply so that their manufacturers could use them in international motorsport.

The 33 Stradale isn’t one of them. It was simply a roadgoing version of the Tipo 33 racer.

The Tipo 33 appeared in various forms over 10 years, but the Stradale was built only briefly in the late 1960s. Highlights included a 2.0-litre V8 engine and butterfly doors.

2. Audi Type P

The Type P was the result of an attempt to produce a small Audi in the early 1930s.

DKW, which had bought Audi in 1928, created the car by replacing the two-stroke engine of its own Type 4=8 with an 1122cc four-stroke supplied (strange as it seems now) by Peugeot.

The experiment was not a success, and after just two years Audi went back to concentrating on larger models, while DKW continued to produce small ones in great numbers.

3. Austin A99 Westminster

The A99 was one of several large BMC saloons launched in 1959 and featuring bodies designed by Pininfarina.

Much the same car was also marketed as a Princess, a Vanden Plas and a Wolseley. All were powered by a 2.9-litre straight-six engine.

In 1961, the Austin was updated and renamed A110, making the A99 one of the shortest-lived of all Westminsters.

4. BMW 335

The 335 was the most luxurious BMW of the 1930s, and its 3.5-litre straight-six engine was the largest the company had ever designed for use in a car.

Its biggest problem was that it was introduced in 1939, immediately before the start of the largest war in world history.

BMW soldiered on with the 335 for a while longer, but abandoned it in 1941.

5. BMW-Glas 3000 V8

The Glas V8 coupé first appeared in 1966 with a 2.6-litre engine.

This was replaced with a 3.0-litre unit of similar design just at the time when Glas was taken over by BMW. The updated car was therefore badged as a Glas-BMW, whose brief shelf life ended in 1968.

Our picture shows a unique 3000 V8, the only one with a body designed by Frua.
 

6. Citroën Type A

Citroën chose just about the most straightforward name imaginable for its first passenger car.

The Type A, powered by a 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine and available in several body styles, made its debut in 1919 and was replaced two years later by the more powerful B2.

7. De Lorean DMC-12

Notable for its brushed-steel, Giugiaro-designed body and gullwing doors, the De Lorean went into production in a factory in Northern Ireland in early 1981.

By the end of the following year, it came to an end, as the company collapsed in a turmoil of financial disaster and political scandal.

Because of this, the car would now be dimly remembered as part of a series of unfortunate events if it hadn’t received enormous (and posthumous) publicity due to its starring role in the Back to the Future film trilogy.

8. Dodge Charger Daytona

The first homologation special on our list was manufactured as a road car in sufficient numbers for Dodge to race a highly modified version in NASCAR.

With its aerodynamic nose and colossal rear wing, it was one of the Winged Warriors, a subset of the Aero Warriors created by other North American brands for the same purpose.

Capable of 200mph in race trim, and the car to have in NASCAR in 1970, the Daytona was produced in very small numbers. Dodge used the Charger Daytona name several times after this, but the original model is the most dramatic of them all.
 

9. Ferrari 250GTO

Strictly speaking, the 25GTO was a racing sports car, though examples were generally registered for road use.

Powered by a 3.0-litre version of the Colombo V12, it had one body update during its brief production life from 1962 to 1964.

In 2018, a 250GTO achieved a world record auction price for a car of £30,750,300. In the same year, another was sold privately for £52,300,000.

10. Ford Consul Classic

No other British Ford ever had a more daring design than the Consul Classic.

Though mechanically conventional, its American-influenced styling and reverse-angled rear window (which strangely didn’t cause much fuss when it appeared on the Anglia in 1959) were the sort of thing you liked only if you liked that sort of thing.

This is possibly why the Consul Classic, introduced in 1961, was off the market by the end of 1963. A coupé version, the Consul Capri, lasted only very slightly longer.

11. Ford RS 200

Another homologation special here, this time one intended to bring Ford back into the international rallying limelight after it had stopped making rear-wheel-drive Escorts.

With 247bhp from its turbocharged 1.8-litre engine, it was the most powerful RS model so far, the only one not based on an existing Ford, and the only mid-engined coupé.

Including prototypes, the RS 200 was built from 1984 to 1986. Its chances of success in world rallying were dashed when the Group B category it was designed to compete in was abolished in 1987.

12. Ford Torino Talladega

The NASCAR Aero Warriors story began with this car.

It lacked a rear wing, and is therefore not classed as a Winged Warrior, but it had a significantly more aerodynamic front end than the regular Torino it was based on.

In the 1969 NASCAR season, it met all possible expectations, giving Ford the manufacturers’ championship and David Pearson the drivers’ title.

13. Honda S500

Slightly larger and more powerful than the similar S360 roadster which never went into production, the S500 was nevertheless a tiny car with a 531cc engine which could rev to 9500rpm.

This was heady stuff for 1963, when the S500 was launched. Honda, however, decided it could do better, and replaced it with the 606cc S600 in 1964.

14. Jaguar XKSS

The reverse of a homologation special, the XKSS was a roadgoing derivative of the Le Mans-winning D-type.

Jaguar built 25 examples in 1957, but nine were destroyed in a factory fire.

Six decades later, the company built nine continuation models to replace the ones which had never seen daylight. In this sense, XKSS production actually lasted for well over half a century, but we’ll quietly draw a veil over that.

15. Lexus ES 250

Along with the LS 400, the ES 250 was one of the first two Lexus models, both introduced in 1989.

The ES 250 was very much the junior partner, with a 2.5-litre V6 (also used in parent company Toyota’s Camry) in contrast to the larger model’s astonishingly quiet 4.0-litre V8.

Neither car remained on the market for long, but the ES was the first to go. It was replaced by the ES 300 after just two years.

16. Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Strassenversion

By the end of the 20th century there was no question of anyone taking to the road in a top-level racing sports car, as had been the case with the Ferrari 250GTO or the Jaguar D-type.

There still had to be a roadgoing equivalent, though, and in the case of the highly successful CLK GTR this was a car known as the Strassenversion, from the German for ‘street version’.

It was built by AMG, and featured only a few concessions to driver comfort. Unlike the racer, it was available as a roadster as well as a coupé.

17. Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II

This was more or less the same car as its fellow NASCAR Aero Warrior, the Ford Torino Talladega.

As with the Ford, the Spoiler II was really just a third-generation Mercury Cyclone with a more aerodynamic nose.

Every roadgoing example was built in early 1969. The race car performed very well in NASCAR events, but that season belonged to Ford.

18. Morris Oxford Traveller

The medium-sized BMC Farina models, of which there were a great many, were mostly introduced in 1959, but Morris continued building the Series IV Traveller estate for an extra year before introducing its Series V replacement in 1960.

All the Farina cars went into a new generation (with less pronounced tailfins among other changes) in 1961, so the Series V Traveller was available for only a year.

The car pictured above is actually a Series VI, but the Traveller, unlike the saloons, continued to look much the same from the rear after the changeover.

19. MG Metro 6R4

The 6R4 was one of the more radical homologation specials developed for Group B rallying in the 1980s.

Although it looked approximately like a regular Metro festooned with aerodynamic aids, it was mechanically quite different.

A 3.0-litre V6 engine (not turbocharged, in contrast to its rivals) was mounted ahead of the rear axle and drove all four wheels.

Around 200 examples were built in 1985, though a development version competed in UK rallies the previous year. The car’s only international season was 1986, after which Group B was abandoned.
 

20. Peugeot 205 T16

Except for its turbocharged engine, the 205 T16 was identical in concept to the later Metro 6R4.

It was also far more successful. Enough road versions had been built by the start of the 1984 World Rally Championship season to allow Peugeot to compete.

T16s won three rounds that year and 13 more in the two that followed. Timo Salonen and Juha Kankkunen were the champion drivers in 1985 and 1986 respectively, while Peugeot won the manufacturers’ crown twice on the trot.
 

21. Peugeot 302

The 302 looked very much like a smaller version of the Peugeot 402 saloon, with a similar aerodynamic shape and headlights mounted behind the radiator grille.

It took over from the much more conventional-looking 301 in 1936, but didn’t last long. It was replaced in 1938 by the still smaller 202, after 25,100 examples had been built.

22. Plymouth Cricket

Chrysler Europe was formed in 1967 as an amalgamation of three companies. One of these was the Rootes Group, which owned Hillman.

Hillman launched its Avenger in 1970. Chrysler decided to sell that car (in saloon and, later, estate forms) in North America as the Plymouth Cricket.

This did not go well. The Cricket was marketed only in the model years 1971 to 1973, after which Chrysler decided not to proceed further.

23. Plymouth Superbird

Alphabetically, the fourth of four NASCAR Aero Warriors, and the second of two Winged Warriors, was the Plymouth Superbird.

Built for road use during 1970, it was essentially a Plymouth Road Runner with an aerodynamic nose and a very large rear wing, following the example of the previous year’s Dodge Charger Daytona.

After two seasons of what became known as the aero wars, NASCAR decided to call a halt to these cars, not specifically banning them but insisting that they were fitted with smaller engines than their less radical rivals.
 

24. Porsche 912E

In the mid to late 1960s, Porsche marketed the 912 as a less expensive, four-cylinder alternative to the celebrated 911.

Both the idea and the name were resurrected for the North American market. The 912E once again had a four-cylinder engine, and was Porsche’s entry-level model.

It was sold only in the 1976 model year, between the discontinuation of the 914 and the arrival of the front-engined 924.

25. Renault 3

Renault launched both the 3 and the 4 in the summer of 1961.

They were effectively the same car, but the 3 had fewer side windows and a 603cc (rather than 747cc) engine, and was cheaper to buy and tax.

Despite the financial benefits of purchasing one, French customers on the whole didn’t. While the 4 remained on sale until the early 1990s, the 3 didn’t survive to the end of 1962.

26. Rover Light Six

Introduced in late 1929 as a more compact version of the Rover Two-Litre, the Light Six became the first car to beat the Blue Train (which ran from Calais to the French Riviera) the following January.

As Bentley chairman Woolf Barnato (who did the same thing two months later with more panache) pointed out, this wasn’t very difficult, since the train had to keep stopping for passengers, but it gave Rover valuable publicity.

It didn’t help the car much, though. The Light Six was abandoned before the end of 1930.

27. Studebaker Avanti

Possibly the most daring of all production cars built in North America in the 1960s, the Avanti was related to the Studebaker Lark but had a glassfibre body designed by a team operating under Raymond Loewy.

It looked fantastic, and it performed superbly, especially if customers specified the supercharger option for the 4.7-litre V8 engine.

Unfortunately, Studebaker, which had been building cars since 1902, was in its death throes by now. The Avanti was dropped when passenger-car production at the South Bend, Indiana, factory it was built in came to an end.

28. Tucker 48

Unofficially known as the Torpedo, the model name of the Tucker 48 refers to the year it was produced, and is a close approximation to the number ever built.

Powered by a rear-mounted flat-six Lycoming engine, the 48 attracted a lot of attention, but Preston Tucker’s company was declared bankrupt in March 1949 after negative publicity (some created by hostile forces, it is said) brought production to a halt.

Not including incomplete cars, one prototype and 50 production vehicles were created, one of which briefly competed in NASCAR.