With the news the other day that Holden was no longer building cars in Australia, it got me to thinking about how many car brands have gone by the wayside since I was born. That year was 1980 so I started making a list and I came up with 17 of the suckers that existed and then went kaput. Now those are 17 that I have heard of. Those of you based in Germany and other countries may have more than that because there were small manufacturers that kicked off in other countries as well. I did not include small boutique producers that made a few supercars and then died but rather those brands that I would consider mainstream.

Obviously the older you are, the longer your list will be but it definitely opened my eyes to something and that is the fact that while the greatest days of automotive innovation and tumult were the early 1900s, the industry is still one that heaves and changes with regularity. If you look up a list of defunct car makers, especially American ones, you will see umpteen hundreds of companies that have slid under the financial waves over the decades. Like I said above, here’s my list starting in 1980. Post yours in the comments section. Who’s got the highest body count?

My list of car makers that have disappeared (and I knew about) since 1980 –

1. American Motors
2. Checker
3. DeLorean
4. Eagle
5. Fisker
6. Geo
7. Hummer
8. Mercury
9. Imperial
10. Oldsmobile
11. Plymouth
12. Pontiac
13. Saab
14. Saturn
15. Scion
16. Trabant (German)
17. Holden

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