You see quite a few mid 90's Clios and Lagunas still trundling about. In spite of Renault's chequered reputation. This is helped in part by Renault's rust protection which was well ahead of many of their rivals. Sadly this attribute went largely unnoticed by buyers who prefer a top trumps style checklist and did nothing for their sales. In a bid to encourage sales, aggressive cost-cutting was adopted and reliability plummeted.

My previous Toyota went to the knackers' yard aged 17 years due to massive structural corrosion. The engine drank almost as much oil as petrol-even when fed with 20w 50. The drivers' seat had become soggy.

It's about to be outlived by a Renault. No structural corrosion, seat still firm, and the engine can still live on a diet of 5w 30.

It's all about bangergnomics?

My biggest gripe [and I don't buy car if they're priced over circa £500....waste of money, IMHO....] concerns the addiciton to add-ons by makers....and the impact these add-ons have on the simple ability of the car to run, & move.

My ideal car [for cost & purpose] would be a Skoda Felicia, 1.3 [for the proper Skoda engine...pushrod simplicity]...MPi, for economy, without power steering [ I have one or two muscles left].....and a non-power-steered alternator is a fraction of the cost of the other one...steel wheels, rather than silly, breakable, chippable alloys...and ..NO AIRCON...non leccy windows a boon too....

[And, I have, bagged up, a brand spankers gearchange/gearbox steady i never got to use, sitting in the kitchen...]

Cheap to 'tax', cheap tpo insure, almost 50mpg's type of economy...can be driven very quickly, if one understands the power characteristics....spares are cheap, easy, road-side fixing...cheap tyres, etc.

Sure they have their foibles [cannot be worse than Ford's products?...and less numb than VAG stuff. [which it only partly is].....

See quite a few Hondas around of that era, espcially the 1988 - 1998 Accord models. Very reliable and didn't rust.

Hmm.. but my '99 Mondeo, and virtually all others from that era, went rusty on the rear arches. It may not be structural, but it looks tatty.

Whereas I came to realise that Peugeot 406s and 306s and 106s and Saxos and Xsaras from that era and even a bit earlier just don't seem to rust. In particular, old 406s are often seen in immaculate condition,

If you're interested in having a deeper look at what's left on the road, what's SORN and what's brought out of retirement for the summer we've got some data on it.

There's 'How Many Exist?' which concentrates on more recent cars, and 'How Many Survived?', covering older cars. Data's from the DVLA.

There's quite a lot of interesting information locked away in the files. I had an Allegro for a year and there's only a few hundred of those left. I also had a Primera before I started working at HJ - thousands of those still going.

Quite liked that car - was a P11 facelift. I spent hundreds on new brakes and then had to sell it. Such is life...

Another one that's really interesting is the sudden decline of Ford Escorts. Seems scrappage put a big chunk of them out of service. My old N-reg has gone to the great heavenly scrapheap now, I think.

Anyway - you'll find How Many Exist? here: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/how-many-exist/

And How Many Survived? here: http://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/how-many-survived/

Thanks for those links - very interesting indeed. My original post was perhaps not very well phrased and I should have perhaps used the expression mainstream cars as I would naturally expect many of the more exclusive marques to be still running, as has been mentioned in many of the replies.

The durability of French cars over a longer period surprised me at first but then, on reflection, I realised that it should probably not have done as when driving in France I have noticed there seem to be huge numbers of fairly ancient-looking Renaults, Citroens and Peugeots etc still running around.

I read an article, a few years ago mind, that said of all the manufacturers Subau had the highest percentage of vehicles remaining in use/registered/taxed which is probably the fairest way of analysing it in the volume market.