After they have been on the road for about twenty years, most cars tend to wind up in that great big used car lot in the sky. It’s a sad truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless. Yet, it seems, there are some models of cars that for whatever reason, manage to evade that final trip to the salvage yard. Sometimes it’s because they are desirable. It’s amazing the amounts of money that someone will spend to put together a desirable car, case in point being the infamous “Barrelcuda”, a 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda that was lovingly restored after sitting for years on five 55-gallon drums. And of course, if you head towards the Southwest, you’ll see cars from most every era still roaming around. But their numbers are few.
What I mean when I say an “automotive cockroach” is a car that you see often, if not daily, and it normally doesn’t cross your mind until you sit back and realize just how many of them are still driving. My case in point is the 1982-96 Buick Century. For a small front-wheel-drive Buick, I see tons of these things pretty much everywhere. They weren’t anything too special, just the FWD A-body Buick relative to the Chevrolet Celebrity, Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera and Pontiac 6000, but somehow, while I see less of the others (especially the Celebrity) the Buick soldiers on. It doesn’t matter where in the country I’m at, I can find a running and driving Buick Century within a half-hour timeframe. I’m extremely hard-pressed to think of another low-rung, non-collectible vehicle that has shown the same kind of staying power. K-cars have been disappearing, I don’t see many first-gen Taurus and Sables around, and even late 1980s Hondas are seen less and less. The only other vehicle that I think comes close is the XJ Cherokee. Maybe it’s just me, maybe not. Do you see one model of plain-jane, nobody cares vehicle that somehow is still around and plentiful years after you would’ve expected them to hit the crusher?
Volvo 240’s and 1980’s Ford and Chevy trucks are all over. They never seem to give up. I also see a lot of 1980’s Mercedes for no apparent reason.
Same here and Cutlass Cieras. Lots of xj Cherokees too and Explorers. Used to be Caprices too but not so much anymore.
Buick A-body Century (as mentioned, and I happen to like the wagon versions)
XJ Cherokee
Early 90’s Toyota small trucks
Even with a college near here, this area is so “Keeping up with the Jones'” that most of the stuff seems to be newer.
Lots of foreign ants. 90s toyotas and nissans.
I especially like the ones with painted grey plastic mag wheel covers that half is missing and still being driven with the remaining half on the wheel.
If these things ever go away, I wonder what drive time and jd byrider will have on
their skunk lots.
S-Series Blazers & Jimmys here.
You want to see a ton of those 1990’s A bodies check out the streets of the non wealthy neighborhoods of SoCal.
Pre facelift XJs, early 2000s impalas, civics, obviously. Ithaca is literally infested with volvo 240s.
Just goes to see how durable those iron dukes and v6’s really are… they might be dumb cars with no performance whatsoever, but man do they make great work vehicles!
In St. Louis, Missouri it seems to be N-body Pontiacs (Grand Am).
Seems to be an inordinately high number of Cavaliers/ Sunfires in these parts…..which is surprising, cuzz one wouldn’t expect the Bic Lighter of automobiles to stick around so long:):)
In Australia we have a very common car that actually looks disturbingly like a cockroach….search out AU Falcon and you’ll see what I mean. Ford Australia collectively took lots of drugs in 1998 and designed this incredibly ugly vehicle. They’re actually a really good car to drive but they look godawful….
An unusual amount of mid 90’s GEO Prizms.
Mid 90’s Toyota Camrys here in ABQ. And most of them seem to be painted that silver blue color Toyota called Platiinum. All in pretty good condition too.
For some reason I see Chevy Luminas everywhere. Both generations. Agree on the XJ, I also see a good amount of square headlight wranglers still kicking.
Rotted out 73-87 GM trucks are still everywhere around here! They just won’t die!
Down here in NC, lots of 88-98 Chevy p/u still roam the streets.
Trucks outnumber cars where I live, and Fords are the most abundant. Recently bought one (even though I’m not particularly a Ford person) because all the Dodge rams had rusted bodies with broken plastic interiors, and Chevys were unsafe due to rusted frames.