Freshly baked youngtimers in 2018
01/03/2018
Classic car magazines are full of articles about cars that are turning 30 or even 50 this year. And of course there are a few to mention, such as the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona (50 years) or the Maserati Karif (30 years). But let's take a look today at the cars that will be classic cars in 10 years and half a century old in 30 years. That's right, we're talking about the vehicles that will reach the youngtimer age of 20 years in 2018. And there are quite a few to list, even if it is not always clear or easy to assign them to a specific year. Should we take the year of the first presentation, the announcement, the start of production or the start of sales? Let's try a mixture and organize the cars into groups.
There are the normal cars for the normal car buyer.
For example, the Renault Clio (B) or the Opel Astra G.
But the VW Lupo also began its career in 1998.
The Peugeot 206 tried to build on the success of the popular 205.
The Fiat Multipla, which not everyone really liked at the time, perhaps making it immortal, came onto the market.
And at Ford, the Focus replaced the Escort. Edge design was now the order of the day.
One class lower, the Fiat Seicento wanted to pick up where the original Panda had left off.
And then there was the BMW 3-series E46, presented at the 1998 Geneva Motor Show, ...
... and the Smart ForTwo! Yes, it's been 20 years since the first rear-wheel drive Smart was seen on the road.
The C5 version of the Audi A6 as an Avant also started its life in 1998, although not yet as an RS6.
And this year was probably also partly responsible for the breakthrough of SUVs. Mercedes-Benz presented the ML.
Land Rover launched the Freelander, ...
Opel the Frontera (and the Monterey).
In the large luxury saloon segment, the Volvo S80 was a breath of fresh air.
The Rover 75 signaled the last gasp of the Rover brand.
Alfa Romeo renovated the 164 and now called it the 166.
And Mercedes-Benz launched the 220 model series, an S-Class that had been improved in every respect.
Of course, there were also new sports cars in 1998, such as the BMW Z3 as a coupé.
The Mazda MX5 came onto the market in its second version.
And the Audi TT showed that not all cars from Ingolstadt have to look the same.
And those who found the more popular sports cars too slow could opt for the new Maserati 3200 GT ( with the boomerang tail lights).
With the new Mercedes-Benz CLK Cabriolet, they could even soak up the sun at high speed.
Or he could sell his (big) house and buy one of the super-fast 25 Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, which was presented in 1997 but not sold to customers until 1998 (picture above).
And of course we've forgotten a few more cars, but readers can help us out with a few comments ...
P.S. What you can't say, however, is that they all looked the same 20 years ago, at least this prejudice would definitely be disproved with this list.
And the fact that we can look forward to the new generation of youngtimers is shown by the many models shown, which we have already been able to honor as classic pearls of the future ...
