Much to celebrate
Automobile anniversaries 2025: the new are the old
With retro-style designs à la Renault 5 and Alfa 33 or revitalized names such as Ford Capri, car manufacturers are looking to the past for progress. No future without origins is therefore the credo for 2025.
Even supposedly young Chinese players such as GWM (Great Wall) proudly refer to their past. The more than 300 automotive anniversaries in 2025 will give the brands a welcome opportunity to celebrate birthdays or revive other historic names. For example, the upcoming Opel Manta will be launched on the 50th anniversary of the legendary sports coupé Manta B. But even those who travel multimodally in the modern world will find that the mix of different means of transport has an impressive history.
The era of the railroad started 200 years ago with the "No. 1" locomotive built by Robert Stephenson in Great Britain , ten years later (1835) the first German railroad, called "Adler", steamed between Nuremberg and Fürth. 140 years ago, automobile pioneer Gottlieb Daimler received two patents, for the "Reitwagen", the ancestor of the motorcycle, and for the "Petroleumkraftmaschine", the first engine developed specifically for cars. In turn, many automobile manufacturers had their origins in bicycle production, such as Skoda, which began 130 years ago under the name Laurin & Klement.
Ford Germany, on the other hand, is celebrating a century of automobile production in 2025. Production of the famous Ford Model T began in Berlin's Westhafen before the foundation stone was laid in Cologne for a plant whose future seems unclear today. Ford's Model T was the first affordable car for the masses, and 80 years ago (1945), after the end of the Second World War, the Volkswagen Beetle really took off. 27 years later, the 15,007,034th Beetle rolled off the production line, surpassing the previous record production number of the Ford T model.
Early affordable people's cars were also produced by other manufacturers. 100 years ago, Hanomag rolled its small car, popularly known as the "Kommissbrot", off the production line in Hanover. 90 years ago, the Opel P4 achieved the status of the most successful German people's car to date, while the larger Opel Olympia caused a worldwide sensation with its self-supporting body. Even in faraway Japan, the engineers were aware of this, but still opted for conventional technology for the first Toyota passenger car, also presented in 1935.
In Japan, Suzuki 's rise to become the king of small car specialists began 70 years ago, and in Italy, the affordable rear-engined Fiat 600 model motorized several million people from 1955 onwards, so much so that the small Fiat was also assembled by Spain's first brand for family cars, the car manufacturer Seat, which was founded 75 years ago. Today, the Italian cult car has an heir in the electric Fiat 600, which proudly refers to its ancestor in design details.
In Germany, it was BMW's Isetta in 1955 that persuaded motorcyclists to switch to a cabin scooter, a scoop with a curious front door that is now cited by the battery-electric Microlino.
Volkswagen celebrated its first pioneering front-wheel drive small car 50 years ago with the Polo, even though the first Polo was only a variant of the Audi 50, which was also built in Wolfsburg at the time.
In 1975, the French were delighted with the Peugeot 604 and Renault 30 TS and the first Gallic six-cylinder (PRV) of the post-war era, an engine realized jointly with Volvo. Volvo installed the power unit in several models, including the luxurious 265 station wagon, which accelerated the development of further V6 noble engines.
In 1975,Jaguar presented the heavyweight and chunky V12 coupé XJS as the successor to the delicate E-Type - and triggered design discussions reminiscent of the current debate surrounding the Jaguar Type 00 concept car. The new über-Mercedes was the 450 SEL 6.9, with which the depression of the 1973/74 oil crisis was apparently finally forgotten. The first BMW 3 Series also made its debut in 1975, a mid-range model series that is still the heart of the brand today and had to assert itself against the new Golf GTI 50 years ago. Porsche made big money with sporty models with the 924, which was the forerunner of a transaxle dynasty.
Opel, on the other hand, launched the Ascona B, a mid-range world car that was sold under numerous brands of the then Opel parent company General Motors. Even more important for the classic car community is another star of the 1975 vintage: the 123 model series became the most-built Mercedes model in the upper mid-size class, now known as the E-Class.
What other highlights can be found in the 2025 anniversary calendar? 70 years ago, the Peugeot 403 made its debut as the lion brand's first model in Pininfarina design - TV inspector Columbo popularized the 403 convertible - and at the same time the Citroen DS. The futuristic high-tech model that wrote cultural history and whose legacy the Stellantis brand DS Automobiles sees itself as today.
The hybrid electric car Lohner Porsche "Semper Vivus ", which was too far ahead of its time, will be 125 years old in 2025 and the Volvo brand 115 years old, while Audi was revived in 1965 with a four-stroke model. Also in 1965, the Renault 16 paved the way for the five-door, variable hatchback model that was later hyped by the Golf generation. And Japanese models such as the Mazda Cosmo, Nissan Silvia and Toyota 2000GT established a Japanese sports car tradition that led to racers such as the Mazda RX-7 (FC3 S), Nissan 300 ZX and Toyota MR2 in 1985.
From 1965, Rolls-Royce offered luxury in larger numbers for the first time: the new, visually discreet Silver Shadow was intended to win back customers who had switched to the opulent Mercedes 600.
But road safety has also been an ongoing issue since 1965. Back then, the American lawyer Ralph Nader published his infamous book "Unsafe at Any Speed" and set the initial spark for a flood of safety concept cars from all the major automotive companies. Some groundbreakingly safe series models, such as the Volvo 240/260 (1975) used by the authorities in the USA as a reference vehicle, even emerged directly from a safety concept.
Thirty years ago, it was the Swedes who were the first to establish "Vision Zero" - zero accidents - as a social goal, while at the same time the NCAP crash test program was adopted in the UK. Two major milestones for road safety that still shape vehicle developments today. All manufacturers are now hoping for five stars in the Euro NCAP for their products and Vision Zero is already anchored in the credos of many companies. So even anniversaries without flashing chrome classics can be cool.
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