Some badges outlast the people who first bought them, surviving recessions, fuel crises and wholesale changes in taste. Every one of these launched in 1974 or earlier and can still be ordered new from a dealer this year. Here are ten nameplates that have never left the showroom.
1. Chevrolet Suburban: The Longest Runner
Chevrolet has used the Suburban name since 1935, which makes it the longest-running nameplate among cars still in production. The original was a truck-based wagon built to carry a family and its gear, and that basic idea has never changed. Nine decades on, the badge remains in showrooms as a full-size, body-on-frame family hauler.
Few names in any industry last that long without a gap. For buyers, the Suburban offers a rare direct link to the earliest days of the sport utility vehicle, and a shopper who wants three rows plus towing capacity can still order one new today.
2. Ford F-Series: Ford’s Oldest Survivor
The F-Series has been in production since 1948, and one industry list calls it Ford’s oldest vehicle still being built. It began as a line of work trucks and grew into a family of pickups spanning light-duty models to heavy Super Duty rigs. Dealers still sell the range new, in configurations the first owners could not have pictured.
Its endurance reflects how central the pickup has become to the company. A buyer choosing an F-Series today picks from a very wide family of cab styles, bed lengths and engines that all trace back to the same postwar badge.
3. Chevrolet Corvette: America’s Sports Car
First launched in 1953, the Corvette is still on sale, and the current lineup is built around the mid-engine C8 generation. That span covers roughly seven decades of changing engines, bodies and layouts, including the radical shift of the engine from the front to behind the driver. Very few American nameplates have lasted as long.
The long run has made the name one of the most recognisable in the American industry. Buyers today get an exotic-style layout with a heritage that few sports cars anywhere can match, all under a badge that predates the moon landing.
4. Porsche 911: Twenty-One Ways To Buy
Porsche introduced the 911 in 1963, and the company sold it in 21 distinct models as of 2025. The rear-engine silhouette has survived generation after generation of redesign. Coupes, convertibles, turbo variants and track-focused versions all share the same numbers on the badge.
The size of the family matters for shoppers. Choosing a 911 now means navigating a sprawling menu of trims rather than buying a single car, yet each variant still carries a nameplate that is more than sixty years old.
5. Toyota Corolla: Past The Sixty-Year Mark
Toyota launched the Corolla in 1966, and the Corolla’s long history shows a car still in production more than sixty years later. The name has carried compact sedans and hatchbacks across a dozen generations and an enormous number of markets. Toyota’s newsroom has also pointed to a 2027 model expected at dealerships this fall.
That continuity helps explain why the Corolla is so often cited as one of the best-selling nameplates in automotive history. For buyers, it stands for a straightforward compact car whose basic recipe has stayed familiar for decades.
6. Ford Mustang: Pony Car, Still Galloping
Ford launched the Mustang in 1964, and it is among the longest-running nameplates still on sale in the United States. It is the original pony car, offered today as a coupe and a convertible with a V8 option. Through changing tastes and several redesigns, the name has never left the lineup.
That staying power is unusual among performance coupes, many of which disappeared as buyers moved to crossovers. Anyone shopping for a rear-drive V8 two-door can still walk into a Ford showroom and order the descendant of the 1964 original.
7. Honda Civic: From Subcompact To Staple
The first Civic rolled off the Honda production line in 1972, and the name is still sold new. It began as a small, efficient car, and today the badge covers sedans and hatchbacks in a much larger size class than the original. More than five decades of production sit behind it.
The growth in size is the main caveat for nostalgic shoppers, since the current model differs greatly from the 1972 car. The continuity lies in the name and in a reputation for economy and reliability that has carried across generations.
8. Mercedes-Benz S-Class: The Benchmark Flagship
Mercedes-Benz introduced the S-Class nameplate in 1972, and it remains on sale today. It has long served as the brand’s flagship sedan, the car where new safety and comfort technology tends to appear first. Each generation sets the target for rival luxury saloons.
For owners and buyers, the name signals the top of the range rather than a particular size or engine. That role has stayed constant for more than fifty years, even as the technology behind it has changed beyond recognition.
9. Volkswagen Golf: The Hatchback That Stayed
Volkswagen launched the Golf in 1974, and it is still on sale in the United States. The original replaced the Beetle and established the template for the modern compact hatchback. Eight generations later, the name still sits at the centre of the brand’s lineup.
The span covers the shift from air-cooled rear-engine cars to a front-drive formula that rivals copied. American buyers can still order a Golf new, which makes it one of the few European compacts to keep that long run going.
10. Mercedes-Benz SL: A Roadster Since 1954
The SL originally debuted for the 1954 model year, with uninterrupted production under the same name, and a 2026-updated list also shows it still on sale. The badge has covered gullwing coupes, elegant roadsters and folding-hardtop convertibles over seven decades, always as a sporting two-seater from Mercedes-Benz.
That history gives the SL a place among the oldest sports-luxury names. Buyers get a Mercedes convertible with direct ancestry to the 1950s original, though the modern car is far larger and more technology-laden than the early roadsters.
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