Depending on your perspective cars of the 1980s might seem like they were new yesterday or built sometime before the beginning of time. Regardless of your perspective, the newest vehicle to come out of the decade is now 23 years old.


With this in mind, we started wondering which car or truck built between 1980 and 1989 is still best represented on the roads in 2012. Two to three decades after the last new example left the factory, which eighties vehicle do you still see in running condition most frequently? What vehicle from the 1980s has the highest survival rate?

Perhaps it's because of my love of all things luxury and German from the decade, but I believe Mercedes 300Ds from the first half of the eighties are still best represented on the roads. In the land of road salt and (usually) unpleasant winters there isn't exactly a surplus of any vehicles from the 1980s on the Cape that rust remembered.


Even so, rarely do a day or two of driving pass without seeing a usually rusty but occasionally nice example of one of the most reliable cars ever made cruising the roads of Cape Cod, regardless of the season. It's worth noting 300Ds were actually first offered in 1977 and were relatively unchanged until they were discontinued at the end of 1985 but because the bulk of the model run was in the eighties, I think they count.

What vehicle from the 1980s has the highest survival rate?

Photo Credit: MSVG