Cortinas, Cavaliers and successors - where did they go?

[GusB]

I've just finished watching a video about the Mk1 Ford Mondeo (link below), a car which was introduced in the 1990s and was in production until fairly recently. This, along with its predecessors, the Cortina and the Sierra were fairly ubiquitous on the roads for many years. Likewise, the Vauxhall Cavalier and its Vectra and Insignia successors were also fairly common, although I don't recall seeing as many of the latter as its Ford equivalent. Production of the Insignia has also ceased, I believe.

While I realise that there has been a significant shift to crossover-type cars, along with a big move towards hybrids and EVs, it struck me that there don't seem to be many Mondeos and Insignias left on the road today - not even later models. Where have they all gone?

Perhaps it's just a local thing - where I live there are fairly high numbers of Mercs and Beemers, but when it comes down to "ordinary" cars, they tend to be in the smaller segments; the Ford Focus and Vauxhall Astra are still fairly common, while the younger crowd still have Fiestas and Corsas. Has anyone else noticed a decline in the number of their larger siblings?

 

[Snow1964]

There are multiple parts to this, fashions change and move to taller SUV and crossovers, and change of size. The new generations of Focus and Astra are similar (if not bigger) than some Cortina and Cavaliers were.

Might think of Focus as a modern day Escort, but it is much bigger. Even the later Fiesta grew to virtually old Escort size.

Have to take it cars like Puma are modern replacements, with Kuga big family size

 

[birchesgreen]

Many people who want (or feel they need) a bigger car have gone for SUVs instead and in the end it doesn't become economical to keep developing other types, which is a shame as i think cars like the Mondeo (and especially earlier incarnations) are much better.

Many of the Mondeos and the like would be hard working rep vehicles, pounding the motorways day after day, and probably all worn out.

Smaller cars are indeed getting bigger. My sis-in-law bought a Corsa a couple of years ago, when i first saw it i thought it was an Astra until i saw the name on the back!

 

[GusB]

There are multiple parts to this, fashions change and move to taller SUV and crossovers, and change of size. The new generations of Focus and Astra are similar (if not bigger) than some Cortina and Cavaliers were.

Might think of Focus as a modern day Escort, but it is much bigger. Even the later Fiesta grew to virtually old Escort size.

Have to take it cars like Puma are modern replacements, with Kuga big family size

Many people who want (or feel they need) a bigger car have gone for SUVs instead and in the end it doesn't become economical to keep developing other types, which is a shame as i think cars like the Mondeo (and especially earlier incarnations) are much better.

Many of the Mondeos and the like would be hard working rep vehicles, pounding the motorways day after day, and probably all worn out.

Smaller cars are indeed getting bigger. My sis-in-law bought a Corsa a couple of years ago, when i first saw it i thought it was an Astra until i saw the name on the back!

With all due respect, I have acknowledged that fashions have changed, but neither of your replies have addressed the question of where late models of these cars have gone. They were still being sold until fairly recently and one would expect to see cars on the road for a certain amount of time, but it seems to me that these models have vanished more quickly from our streets.

 

[Snow1964]

I can't find data for UK only, but these are Europe sales volumes of Mondeo, sorry can't find sales data for 1993-1996, but I suspect it was 300k+ then too.

It had clearly fallen out of favour about 13 years ago, less than quarter of previous numbers (and declining), just didn't sell well in UK in last decade so very few are still around

1997	322,716
1998	310,809
1999	227,167
2000	178,130
2001	286,794
2002	250,316
2003	199,370
2004	183,357
2005	165,303
2006	131,749
2007	148,818
2008	163,262
2009	117,565
2010	96,898
2011	86,471
2012	69,871
2013	50,180
2014	45,405
2015	79,673
2016	70,900
2017	56,173
2018	49,596
2019	39,555
2020	21,222
2021	13,481
2022	5,318

 

[birchesgreen]

With all due respect, I have acknowledged that fashions have changed, but neither of your replies have addressed the question of where late models of these cars have gone. They were still being sold until fairly recently and one would expect to see cars on the road for a certain amount of time, but it seems to me that these models have vanished more quickly from our streets.

Well i did address it really. They were very often used by people who do high milage and so wear out. Mondeos were common in company car pools for example.

 

[Lucan]

1) The scrappage scheme

2) Many/most of the people who bought those mid-sized saloons were (very generalising here) the type who want to keep up with the Joneses and are probably not inclined to get under and change the oil either. They were also used as company fleet cars. Those owners do not want to keep them for a long time; with guys I knew it was typically only 2-3 years in which time they probably never found the bonnet release, nor looked for it. On the other hand, those cars do not appeal to budget buyers, students, or boy-racers so they have relatively poor second hand value. So they arrive at the scrapyard earlier than small budget cars, large prestige cars, and speciality vehicles like 4x4s.

 

[swt_passenger]

1) The scrappage scheme

2) Many/most of the people who bought those mid-sized saloons were (very generalising here) the type who want to keep up with the Joneses and are probably not inclined to get under and change the oil either. They were also used as company fleet cars. Those owners do not want to keep them for a long time; with guys I knew it was typically only 2-3 years in which time they probably never found the bonnet release, nor looked for it. On the other hand, those cars do not appeal to budget buyers, students, or boy-racers so they have relatively poor second hand value. So they arrive at the scrapyard earlier than small budget cars, large prestige cars, and speciality vehicles like 4x4s.

In terms of larger cars I had 3 Cortinas, all 2L models, during the 1980s, then a Cavalier, a couple of Focuses and finally a Mondeo from 2004-2011. The last was probably well over sized for what I actually needed, and its second hand value had tanked at 7 years old. I never really considered that type of car after 2011.
I suspect they’re unlikely to ever be bought as second cars once a family’s main car has been either downsized or changed to an SUV, and presumably they were very difficult to insure for newly passed drivers? Did poor fuel economy of that generation of car have much of an impact on resale values?

 

[Merle Haggard]

There's a website "How many left" which gives the numbers of vehicles licensed and on S.O.R.N. by year and make/ model. Unfortunately, some 'models' are subdivided to the nth degree, which makes totalling difficult.
Just interesting to see how few cars from the past still survive.

 

[thejuggler]

Average age of UK cars is 8 years, typical lifespan is 14 years.

Fords and Vauxhalls were always priced and seen as disposable (many bought by fleets as company cars) so a minor prang at 5-6 years old saw them written off. Friend had a 5 year old Mondeo which had done 130,000 miles and was scrapped due to costs to repair.

There are 1400 hundred Mondeos on autotrader, 1800 Insignias.

 

[Kite159]

I can remember the last episode of the 3rd season of the grand tour focusing on the 'death' of the Ford Mondeo.

Rise of more people leasing cars than buying them meaning they lease something with a German badge (Audi/BMW/Merc) than a Ford. Or going for SUV style vehicles

 

[DustyBin]

To (partially) answer the question @GusB asked, I still see a lot of late Mondeos on the road. MK4s are still common (a local Taxi company is still using them) and late MK5s are relatively new cars. There are plenty of MK5s for sale at upwards of £20k despite heavy depreciation.

Sales of this kind of car declined in recent years as others have stated, so there were obviously less of them to begin with, but also cars have become less distinctive, so unless you're really looking perhaps you notice them less among their German, Korean etc. counterparts?

 

[RailWonderer]

High depreciation of saloons generally leads to earlier scrappage than a crossover, coupe or convertible.

 

[DustyBin]

High depreciation of saloons generally leads to earlier scrappage than a crossover, coupe or convertible.

I'm not sure that's the underlying cause, it's more to do with running and repair costs (although of course this in turn affects demand and therefore depreciation).

Large saloons are generally more expensive to run than a small hatchback, and as they get older less people run them as a budget option. Coupe and convertible versions of saloon cars don't tend to fair any better for exactly the same reason. "Proper" coupes and convertible sports cars are relatively niche so are a different matter.

Crossovers have came to the fore relatively recently, and I can't see why an X1 would be expected to have a longer lifespan that an equivalent 3-Series for example.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Depreciation.

I used to buy a car with a long MOT* cheap at auction and just run it for the MOT duration. Don't know if it's still produced, but there was then 'Glass's Guide' to used car prices, issued monthly, and used by the trade for buying and selling - any car that 'stalled' at the auction result in the crowd quickly scanning their copies of the guide to see if it was a bargain, and some bidding up to the price.

The guide was restricted to the trade and action was apparently taken against anyone who let an ordinary member of the public see one. I did, however, get to have one - a considerate friend called round, put it down and 'forgot' to pick it up.

I analysed it to find the best bargain - i.e., a model that depreciated quickly either because it was unreliable or was unpopular. But I then worked out that there was no accounting for those factors in the Guide, every car model from a Mercedes to a Lada depreciated, according to Glass, the same amount (as a proportion of original/previous year's price).

So depreciation wasn't a factor between models 30 - 40 years ago.

*Often surprising how much a car's brakes, tyres etc could deteriorate overnight after passing the MOT the day before the auction ;_).

 

[DelW]

High mileages would certainly be a factor - company fleet cars, which these models often were, are worked harder than private ones.

I had from new, three mk1 Mondeos ('93, '97, 2000), a mk2 ('04) and a mk3 ('08), all company-leased for 3 or 4 years. At the end of the lease each was getting close to 100,000 miles, and some of my colleagues' cars would have been well higher than that.

I knew the subsequent history of two - the '97 was bought in 2000 by a friend of mine who ran it until around 2007, when it had something like 130,000 miles on. He sold it for about £300 as it had had an incident with a gatepost that restyled the driver's side, and I doubt it lasted much longer. The '04 was bought in 2008 by a work colleague who ran it on a car allowance option, and the last I heard in about 2011, it had around 160,000 miles and was looking like needing major work for its next MoT, which it probably didn't get.

These cars were worked hard, and while their calendar lifespans may look short, their distance lifespan was not. When lots of parts are wearing out more or less at once, it's uneconomic to keep them on the road. No-one's going to treat them as a future classic either!

 

[Bletchleyite]

The other thing that's going on is model inflation. Thus the Focus of today is bigger than the Cortina of yesteryear despite it being "son of Escort". Every now and then a big car "falls off the top", a small one is added at the bottom and everything moves up.

One reason this happens is so someone who "always buys Focuses" has the car grow with their family.

As for fleets, a lot of them are buying Kugas instead of Mondeos, meaning those at three years old are plentiful and cheap.

 

[edwin_m]

"Company Cars" as perks became more widespread in the late 1970s, and I believe it had a lot to do with government pay restraint policies at the time - difficult to give someone a decent pay rise but possible to give them a car instead. These tended to be mass-market models of the type being discussed here, and your status in the organisation was represented by what base model you had and how many bells and whistles.

The tax regime was tightened up in the 90s and they gradually became more confined to people who actually had need of a car for their work. I wonder if that was one of the reasons for rail passenger numbers picking up at around the time of privatisation, but more relevantly for this topic it would also have led to more people sourcing their own vehicle and looking beyond the list of options offered by the employer.

 

[Peter Sarf]

1) The scrappage scheme

2) Many/most of the people who bought those mid-sized saloons were (very generalising here) the type who want to keep up with the Joneses and are probably not inclined to get under and change the oil either. They were also used as company fleet cars. Those owners do not want to keep them for a long time; with guys I knew it was typically only 2-3 years in which time they probably never found the bonnet release, nor looked for it. On the other hand, those cars do not appeal to budget buyers, students, or boy-racers so they have relatively poor second hand value. So they arrive at the scrapyard earlier than small budget cars, large prestige cars, and speciality vehicles like 4x4s.

I agree with point 2. Most people buying older cars want the cheapest possible. If they can afford a large second hand car then its likely they will buy a newer smaller car instead as that will be perceived as less worn out.

A lot of larger cars have a high mileage but in my view have been well looked after (the owner could afford to or more likely the fleet owner did not skimp). A high mileage on a motorway is not as damaging as lots of shorter trips adding up to a lower overall mileage. That was my view and why I chose larger cars with a good service history. The fuel consumption was not much worse and countered by the low purchase price. Furthermore as I did not expect to do a high mileage fuel and servicing costs were less important.

But most people go for something smaller secondhand.

As for name meanings. I know most "names" have grown bigger over the years. Also the Carlton/Omega size (executive) got replaced by SUVs. The Zafira came along as well (a taller version of the Astra with more seats).

An example of size sift is :- In 1999 I bought my first Vauxhall Carlton and we all found it easy to spot in a large car park as it was taller than almost everything else. Even five years ago it was almost the lowest car in the car park. So everything has got taller. Goodness knows what the height does to wind resistance. Worse newer cars are heavier than their older equivalents.

 

[bspahh]

https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/ford_mondeo_zetec_tdci shows a plot of the total number of Mondeo Zetec TDCI models each year.


That WWW site breaks down the figures by specific model. The Zetec TDCI has been available for a while and was a big seller. A tabs at the top of the page shows a plot of new registrations, with a peak of ~ 7000 new registrations a year in 2002 and 2003, down to 2000 a year in 2012, and only a few since then.

I've got one from 2012. The list price was ~ £20k when new, £8500 when it was a few months under 3 years old with 55k miles. It has now done 213k miles.

 

[DelW]

The tax regime was tightened up in the 90s and they gradually became more confined to people who actually had need of a car for their work. I wonder if that was one of the reasons for rail passenger numbers picking up at around the time of privatisation, but more relevantly for this topic it would also have led to more people sourcing their own vehicle and looking beyond the list of options offered by the employer.

That was certainly the case with my employer and colleagues. Between about 2000 and 2010 everyone who needed a car for work was moved from company fleet vehicles to self-provision with a car allowance. That had started from the top, where even directors had at one time had Ford Granada Ghias, and resulted in a once (almost) all-Ford car fleet becoming much more varied, with a big increase in e.g. BMWs procured on PCP leases.

 

[thejuggler]

The Mondeo is still alive, but it was named to reflect 'World' and was built on a new international platform.

The last UK model was deemed the largest for UK roads. Mondeo as a model still exists, but like all cars it is now larger. Almost 5m long.

 

[bspahh]

The Mondeo is still alive, but it was named to reflect 'World' and was built on a new international platform.

The last UK model was deemed the largest for UK roads. Mondeo as a model still exists, but like all cars it is now larger. Almost 5m long.

Wikipedia says:

Production of the Mondeo ended in Europe in March 2022
<snip>
The fifth-generation Mondeo saloon was released in China in January 2022. Ford confirmed that the model would not be marketed in Europe and North America. It is marketed in the Middle East as the Ford Taurus.

 

[edwin_m]

Wikipedia says: The fifth-generation Mondeo saloon was released in China in January 2022. Ford confirmed that the model would not be marketed in Europe and North America. It is marketed in the Middle East as the Ford Taurus.

I've ridden in several of those on airport pickups in that region. Definitely larger and more blingy than the European version.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I still see plenty of Insignia's, genuinely can't recall the last time I saw a Mondeo though.

Smaller cars of the same vintage will probably mainly been relatively lightly used around town, with fairly low mileage. Ideal for resale as an "ideal first car" or "cheap runabout". The larger models have likely been harder used and are reaching the stage where maintenance bills start to creep up, thus being more likely to end up at the scrapyard.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I still see plenty of Insignia's, genuinely can't recall the last time I saw a Mondeo though.

That's been my observation too. Of cars in that class, I see a lot of Škoda Octavias around along with the Insignias, but hardly any VW Passats. It's certainly not quite as dominant a sector of the market as it was 20-25 years ago, as many of the target buyers will have switched to crossovers.

 

[DustyBin]

I went to the nearby Sainsbury’s earlier and made a point of looking out for Mondeos. I was driving, so obviously had to concentrate on the road, but I saw two Mk5s, five Mk4s, and one Mk3 (an ST220 estate of all things!). I’d say therefore that they’re still a common sight, but to nowhere near the same extent as they once were. The earlier models which sold in larger numbers are now quite thin on the ground (even the MK3 isn’t that numerous).

 

[talldave]

I owned a V6 Mondeo saloon in the 90s/early 2000s, a brilliant car but you needed so many spare parts for it that it was quite expensive to keep going. After that I switched to Mercedes based Chryslers, running costs dropped, and that's where I've been for the last 16 years!

Mondeo saloons were rare compared to more popular hatchbacks. And the practicality of hatchbacks drove the move to SUVs which I put down entirely to the ease with which they swallow baby clobber and small bikes!

 

[richw]

Mondeo sales dropped like a rock off a cliff on the last shape.
I see plenty of Insignias about.
I wonder if Ford didn’t make the mondeo attractive to fleet buyers. That class of car majority of sales were to fleet buyers so that’s the market they needed to target.

We’ve got a 70 plate Mondeo estate as a pool car at work, I find it uncomfortable to drive and the dash feels too bulky and find the whole driving experience claustrophobic. I wouldn’t buy one unless it was incredibly cheap.
I personally own a 67 plate Leon estate which is miles ahead in quality and comfort to the Mondeo.

 

[DustyBin]

Mondeo sales dropped like a rock off a cliff on the last shape.
I see plenty of Insignias about.
I wonder if Ford didn’t make the mondeo attractive to fleet buyers. That class of car majority of sales were to fleet buyers so that’s the market they needed to target.

We’ve got a 70 plate Mondeo estate as a pool car at work, I find it uncomfortable to drive and the dash feels too bulky and find the whole driving experience claustrophobic. I wouldn’t buy one unless it was incredibly cheap.
I personally own a 67 plate Leon estate which is miles ahead in quality and comfort to the Mondeo.

The problem was pricing, basically. The Insignia continued to sell as a budget fleet car and family barge, whereas the Mondeo occupied an awkward middle ground between this and the “premium” saloon market. It’s direct competitor in this market was the Passat, which despite being German suffered the same fate (although will continue as an estate-only model I believe). It’s difficult when you’re being squeezed from both directions (evidently).

I’ve liked all of the Mondeos I’ve driven, from battered old Mk1s to new Mk5s I’ve had as courtesy cars. It’s a shame Ford made the Mk5 a bit “softer” to widen its appeal (ironically!) as the driving experience was really the Mondeo’s USP. The Mk4 was (in my opinion) “peak Mondeo”, even if the exterior styling was rather questionable.