Manufacturers redesign platforms to incorporate the latest advances in weight-saving materials and safety, and they tweak sheet metal to lure buyers into showrooms with the promise of something fresh. But this story is about the models that bucked the trend, and went on for a very long time.

Volkswagen discontinued the reborn Beetle in 2019, which has reminded us all, lest we need it, that the original Beetle was an extremely long-lived car indeed. Here we take a look at all the longest-surviving cars, and where the original Beetle stacks up. We start at the ‘shortest’ and work our way upwards…