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I love all the speculation! Do modern registration / longevity statistics shed any light on history, or are cars more or less disposable than the past. So, from BigKev's model, (and I agree 5%, seems light), my fairly common 526, may be one of 600ish that survive --- so now rare, indeed. Of course, this doesn't bode well in trying to find an original Goddess...., Guess Mr. Sommer gets my call after all.

I think that a 3-5% survival rate is fair. Especially for cars older than 50 years old.

Also, the War Scrap drives finished off a lot of pre-war cars prematurely.

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Cars used to have a MUCH shorter life. Some years back a noted custom car designer from the classic era, was invited to a car show featuring his designs. He remarked that they never expected the cars to last 50 years or more. If they thought about it at all they would have figured ten years, tops. Most buyers of custom body cars replaced them every year or 2.

Typical life of a twenties or thirties car, seven or eight years and 60,000 to 80,000 miles. If a car lasted 100,000 miles it was a miracle.

I have some old garage trade magazines from 1937 and 38. They are filled with ads for patent valve stem seals, and special piston rings that will stop oil burning without reboring the cylinders, and piston skirt expanders to stop piston slap. Articles on engine repair take it for granted that every car will need an engine overhaul after 20,000 to 30,000 miles. Tune up every 5000 to 10000 including a carburetor overhaul. Life of fuel pump, starter, generator, 10,000 to 20,000 miles. Tires 5000 miles.

Even 50 years ago there were 10 times as many garages around as there are today even though there were only half as many cars. Cars of the fifties and sixties required that much more service and repair compared to today's and even then, they were much more reliable than prewar cars. Even so they were far inferior to anything made today in terms of trouble free driving.

Today those garages are all donut shops, pet grooming parlors or convenience stores.

Portlandon
Now that is an interesting picture. Did the circus just come into town for a scrap drive? Looks like an elephant pulling and woman, or a clown pushing.

Was there a caption on this photo?

Of course the cars themselves last longer today. But the American average is still just 30 months in the original owners hands. We also commute and travel way more than in days gone by. So a ten year old car in 1937 would be no more likely at the end of its useable life than a ten year old car today. In other words if we drive 15,000 miles / year now = 150,000 after ten years. 4,000(?) miles in 1930, = 40,000. Obviously much more likely to be in a catastrophic accident over 150,000 miles @ 75 mph than 40,000 @ 45.

Quote:

Norfolk Virginia: An elephant and a circus clown team up to collect old cars for the scrap drive. 13 October 1942

Link

I bet alot of nice brass era cars met their end to these scrap drives.

Earlier in this thread Packard V8 and I had an exchange about "The Packard Registry". I did find my old copy, it's dated 1994 and includes about 2900 Packards, far less than PAC's current total of 6965.

One area where PAC's data is probably the most incomplete is in the brass-era cars, many of these guys with the real old-timers move in different circles like the organizations devoted to the very early cars.

Ray17015 gives a good objective analysis of car longevity comparison.

I'm wondering how any of the modern day cars would hold up under PREwar infrastructure road systems. OR how much more life would be gained from PREwar cars in modern day service on modern day roads. The biggest problem with PREwar cars is exceptionaly long engine stroke coupled to extremely short axle ratios. The long stroke and short axles were most appropriate for PREwar infrastructure. There was simply NO PREwar demand whatsoever for 80 mph Interstate travel for 15K miles per year.

Just for clarification; the %5 rate I listed above is not the survival rate, but the yearly attrition rate. So basically every year the current population of a said model drops %5. The next year it drops another %5 from that years current population and so on.

So the physical number of cars that drop of into oblivion is less every year as the population decreases. So for example my a car, a 5492 Clipper Deluxe Touring Sedan, had a total production run of 7,610 cars. So based on my model, after 56 years @ %5 attrition per year, the estimated number of cars left would be 431 cars.

Now obviously this wont work for every model, for example a 55 Caribbean, with a production run of 500 units would only have 29 cars left after 55 years of attrition. But obviously the survival rate is higher on these cars as the became collectable the moment they were produced.

So I think the rate works pretty well for "common\pedestrian" models that were not generally keep as collectables from day one, but not for models that were prized from day one.

According to the announcer in this 1953 television ad, "53% of all Packards ever built since way back 1899 are still in use. Built like a Packard means built to last."

youtube.com/watch?v=Djvvv-25v3U&feature=related

Don't know whether its marketing hype or fact-based, but its another factor that can be thrown into the survival rate guestimates.