19 quarter-century classics

Is it really a quarter of a century already?

A quarter of a century is a long time, but not so long that cars separated by that interval are unrecognisable from each other.

Some of the vehicles introduced in 1996 have no equivalents today. Others are still around, though often in dramatically different forms.

Many of them have aged well. There were grumbles in the 1990s that car styling had become boring, but from a 2021 perspective these designs seem clean and uncluttered. Perhaps we will return to that simplicity one day.

For now, though, let’s rewind 25 years and see what the motor industry thought its customers would find appealing back in ’96.

1. Audi S8

Under the undramatic lines of the S8 lay a big secret: all four wheels of what appeared to be a large luxury saloon were driven by what was regarded at the time as an exceptionally powerful engine.

The 4.2-litre V8 produced 355bhp when the car was introduced, giving a 0-62mph time of just over 6 secs. Fortunately, the braking and suspension were updated to match.

2. Cadillac Catera

Persuading Europeans to buy Cadillacs in significant numbers has always been difficult. In 1996, GM’s luxury brand tried the very different tactic of building a car in Germany and selling it to Americans.

The Catera was a rebadged Vauxhall/Opel Omega with a 3.0-litre V6, shipped across the Atlantic from the Opel factory in Rüsselsheim. The experiment was not a success: fewer than 100,000 were sold in five years.
 

3. Citroën Saxo

The Saxo was Citroën’s equivalent of the Peugeot 106, which was itself based on the Citroën AX.

As a new century approached, the Saxo became astonishingly popular in the UK, thanks to free insurance deals for young drivers and an almost constant flow of tuning and styling advice in the then-influential Max Power magazine.

4. Ferrari 550

For its new car of 1996, Ferrari returned to its earliest tradition, producing a sports car with a V12 engine mounted in the front. The 550 name hinted at the size of the 5.5-litre unit, which produced 480bhp.

The 550 Maranello coupé was joined in 2000 by the Barchetta Pininfarina convertible version, and replaced two years later by the mechanically similar, but more powerful, 575M Maranello.

5. Ford Ka

The Ka was based on the third-generation Fiesta hatchback but had similar styling to the Ghia Saetta concept car.

Ford’s smallest model of the time gave rise to the StreetKa convertible (marketed with the help of Kylie Minogue) and the SportKa (known as ‘the Ka’s evil twin’), which handled beautifully.

Both variants had a 1.6-litre engine. The regular Ka was only ever sold in Europe with a 1.3-litre unit.

6. Hyundai Coupé

Also known as the Tiburon and Tuscani, the car marketed in Europe simply as the Hyundai Coupé arrived in 1996 and lasted – after a major update and several facelifts – until 2008.

Its success was easily explained. The Coupé may have been cramped, and not as sporty as it seemed, but it was cheap and (except during the mercifully brief lifetime of a truly awful facelift in 1999) it looked great. You can’t go far wrong with a combination like that.

7. Jaguar XK8

Jaguar reintroduced the XK name when it launched the XK8 in 1996. The new sports car – a replacement for the long-running XJS – was the first Jaguar in years with an eight-cylinder engine, namely the new AJ-V8. This was only the company’s fourth engine design in nearly 50 years.

A supercharged version called the XKR arrived in 1998. Both models remained in production until the new XK (constructed largely from aluminium) came along in 2006.

8. Jeep Wrangler

Although Jeep’s 1996 model bore a close family resemblance to the military vehicles of the 1940s, it was only the second to have the Wrangler name.

This was the first ‘classic’ Jeep to feature coil-spring suspension. Despite that, the ride quality could reasonably be described as ‘robust’, though Wrangler owners wouldn’t have minded.

Four-cylinder engines were available, but the motor of choice was the 4.0-litre AMC straight-six, which made its debut 32 years before the second-generation Wrangler.

9. Lotus Elise

As Ferrari did with the 550, Lotus returned to its roots with the Elise, producing a car in which power was unimportant (at first, anyway), and precision and lightness were everything.

The original power output from the 1.8-litre Rover K-Series engine was below 120bhp, though more powerful, special-edition models with up to 190bhp became available.

Other variants included the Exige, which was essentially a high-performance Elise with a solid roof.

10. Mercedes-Benz SLK

Mercedes-Benz launched the first of what were to become three generations of SLK-Class in 1996. This two-seat roadster was based on a shortened version of the platform used for the contemporary C-Class saloon.

The most exciting version of the original R170 was the SLK32 AMG (pictured), which had a supercharged 3.2-litre V6 engine producing 350bhp.

The second-gen (R171) SLK arrived in 2004, but the original model lived on, to some extent, in the Chrysler Crossfire also introduced that year.

11. Mitsubishi Shogun Sport

Also known as the Pajero Sport, Montero Sport and Challenger, among other names, the original Shogun Sport was the SUV version of the third-generation L200 pick-up truck.

Slightly smaller than the regular Shogun, the Sport was offered with a similar range of petrol and diesel engines. The most powerful, but least economical, was a 3.5-litre V6 producing just short of 190bhp.

12. Porsche Boxster

The Boxster was the first Porsche since the 1960s designed from scratch as a roadster, and the first of the company’s mainstream models with a mid-mounted engine.

More powerful versions arrived in due course, but at first the emphasis was on handling, just as it was on the contemporary Lotus Elise.

With a 200bhp 2.5-litre engine, the original Boxster couldn’t live with a 911. Through corners, it was a different story.

13. Renault Sport Spider

The first model produced by the Renault Sport subsidiary was essentially a road-legal race car. The 2.0-litre 16-valve engine and five-speed gearbox came from high-performance version of the Clio and Megane, but the structure was completely different.

The aluminium structure was clothed with plastic composite body panels, and the powertrain was mounted between the rear wheels.

Passenger comfort was not a strong point: the Spider was never sold with a roof, and only sometimes with a windscreen. There were no carpets.

Production lasted for three years. Renault has never put a car like it on the market since.

14. Seat Alhambra

The Alhambra was one of three more or less identical seven-seat MPVs jointly developed by Ford and the Volkswagen Group. The others were the Ford Galaxy and the Volkswagen Sharan.

Ford pulled out of the deal and put its own second-generation Galaxy on the market in 2006. The Alhambra and Sharan were not replaced until 2010, having changed very little since their introductions a decade and a half earlier.

15. Škoda Octavia

Škoda revived the Octavia name (which it had last used in 1971) for its 1996 medium-sized family car.

Like all subsequent Octavias, this one was very closely related to the contemporary Volkswagen Golf and similar VW Group products.

Škoda was still very much a budget brand at this point, but the first modern Octavia already had the large amount of luggage space also found in later models.

16. Toyota Camry

The 1996 Camry was cheaper to build and had less equipment than the model it replaced. This situation was forced on Toyota by the financial crisis which led to the ’90s being referred to as the Lost Decade in Japan.

North American customers didn’t seem to mind. In 1997, the Camry was the best-selling passenger car in the US.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Toyota GB created a Sport derivative. Standard equipment included larger wheels, lowered suspension, a body styling package and leather upholstery.

17. TVR Cerbera

The Cerbera was unusual for a ’90s TVR in that it was a 2+2 with a solid roof, rather than a strictly two-seat convertible.

It was also the first model produced by the small British company with a TVR-specific engine, rather than one bought from a major manufacturer.

The Speed Eight, or AJP8, was available in 4.2- and 4.5-litre forms, and produced 440bhp in high-performance Red Rose specification. The later Speed Six engine was also fitted to the Cerbera.

18. Volkswagen Passat

The fifth-generation Passat was based on the same platform as the Audi A4 launched in 1994. Sold in saloon and estate forms, the Passat was mostly available with engines ranging in size from 1.6 to 2.5 litres.

The remarkable exception to this was a short-lived and very expensive model powered by a 271bhp 4.0-litre W8 engine and equipped as standard with four-wheel drive.

This was the only W8 engine ever fitted to a production car. It was quickly abandoned, but it paved the way for future VW Group vehicles with W16 engines.

19. Volvo C70

Volvo introduced three closely related models based on the same platform in 1996. The S70 and V70 were developments of the 850 saloon and estate respectively, but the C70 coupé had no immediate predecessor.

The C70 appeared in the 1997 film, The Saint. This was a nod to the use of the much earlier Volvo 1800 in the TV series of the same name.