By Rob Sass \/ Originally\u00a0<\/em>Published November 20, 2013 \/ Hagerty<\/em><\/p>\n

In this age of ultra-short product lifecycles where a three-model-year run unchanged is an eternity, it\u2019s tough to imagine the same basic design being produced for three separate decades or more. Here are six cars well known to most Americans that all had tortoise-like life spans:<\/p>\n

$\"1966$ <\/a>
1966 Jeep CJ-5<\/p><\/div>\n
3. \u00a01949-80\u00a0Volkswagen Beetle<\/a><\/strong>: For a car that was a virtual orphan cast-off at the end of WWII, the Beetle wound up doing OK. The Allied occupying powers didn\u2019t quite know what they should do with the car, which was commissioned by the Nazis to give loyal subjects mobility on the new Autobahn superhighways. As it turned out, invading Poland and plunging the world into a catastrophic war took precedence over the automobile business, and the Allies found the remnants of a new factory in a new town known as Wolfsburg. They elected to let the post-war Germans keep the funny little car, and the rest is history. Although the last Super Beetle Cabriolets were sold in the U.S. from 1980-81, production of the basic Beetle sedan continued in Mexico until 2006.<\/p>\n
$\"1979$ <\/a>
1979 Volkswagen Beetle<\/p><\/div>\n
4. \u00a01964-89 Porsche 911 (air-cooled)<\/a><\/strong>: The 911 celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, but to be fair, we cut this off in 1989, the last year for the original torsion-bar suspension, air-cooled 911. It\u2019s simply amazing how little of the basic car changed over the course of 25 years, from the primitive heating system, to most of the glass, roof and doors, as well as the basic engine design. 911 fans seemed just fine with that as the car outlived its intended successor \u2014 the 928.<\/p>\n
$\"1969$ <\/a>
1969 Porsche 911<\/p><\/div>\n
5. \u00a01968-82 C3 Corvette<\/a><\/strong>: Corvettes through their history had been on a somewhat fast and furious development pace ever since Zora Arkus-Duntov decided to show Chevy how to make it into a real V-8-powered sports car in 1955. The second generation, or C2, Corvette (which many argue was the best of the classic Corvettes) was only around from 1963-67. The car that replaced that version, however, hung around for 14 long years. To be fair, these were tough years for GM, which was getting hammered by imports and two fuel crises. There were several mid-engine design studies that came perilously close to replacing the C3, but it never happened, and the same basic design lasted from LBJ to Reagan.<\/p>\n
$\"1978$ <\/a>
1978 Chevrolet Corvette<\/p><\/div>\n
6. \u00a01960-82 Checker Marathon<\/a><\/strong>: Who doesn\u2019t miss the Checker Marathon? One of the few purpose-built taxi cabs ever sold in the U.S., they were infinitely nicer to ride in than the clapped-out Ford Crown Vics that seem to serve as cabs everywhere in the U.S. Similar in roominess to the classic London taxis still in service, with their handy fold-down jump seats, the Marathon also added a useful trunk to the mix.\u00a0 Although the vast majority were used as cabs, ultra-practical eccentrics did from time to time buy Marathons as civilian transportation.\u00a0 Twenty-two years wasn\u2019t long enough.<\/p>\n
$\"Checker$ <\/a>
Checker Marathon<\/p><\/div>\n
This article has been reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder, Hagerty. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Click here for more\u00a0<\/i>classic car stories<\/i><\/a>\u00a0from Hagerty.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":4526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cos_headline_score":0,"cos_seo_score":0,"cos_headline_text":"","cos_headline_has_been_analyzed":false,"cos_last_analyzed_headline":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[607,605,604,612,601,435,55,609,18,593,1231,885,602,610,613,523,524,73,608,622,74,44,195,603,606],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/1980-MGB.jpg?fit=466%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9nnZN-1aV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4521"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5283,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4521\/revisions\/5283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}