Several of the most successful car (and engine) designs were successful because they were around for a long time. The original VW Beetle is an example and so is the small block Chevrolet V8.
Both were in continuous production for decades.
For generations.
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Beetles were still being produced (in Mexico) until the early 2000s in largely the same basic form and layout as when the first one was paraded before Der Fuhrer in the mid 1930s. And Chevy’s small block V8 outlasted Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush senior. The same basic engine that was installed in ’55 Chevys was still being installed in new Chevys as recently as just a few years ago (and the current GM “LS” V8 shares many of the same design features, even though parts do not interchange).
Cars – and engines – used to stay in production without major changes for much longer, generally. For example, my ’76 Pontiac Trans-Am is pretty much the same car as a 1970 Trans Am and also a 1981 Trans-Am. The production run lasted 11 years.
This was good for the car companies and for us, the people buying the cars.
The car companies were better able to amortize the costs of designing a new car (or a new engine), including tooling costs – which can be huge. Knowing that a new engine might be in production for 20 or even 30 years encouraged investment in new/radical technologies – because the car company stood a very good chance not only of making back whatever it had invested but also a lot of “gravy” after that.
The small block Chevy, for example, was a wild design back in 1955. It was light and compact; it had an innovative valvetrain that allowed it to rev freely, reliably – and it made a lot of power for its size (it was one of the very first engines to achieve the magical 1 horsepower for every cubic inch of displacement).
It was such a good engine that – beyond relatively superficial changes such as increases in displacement and the replacement (eventually, after decades in production) of carburetors with electronic fuel injection – it wasn’t retired from front line service until the early 2000s.
Millions of them were made.
Similarly, the Beetle. It got tweaked here and there, but a late ’70s Beetle (or even an early 2000s Mexican Beetle) was fundamentally the same car as a 1930s example.
Because so many were made over such a long time, parts (new and used) were and still are readily available. And cheap. You can buy a brand-new crated replacement small block V8 from GM today, over the counter, for less than $1,500.
That is for an entire engine.
This makes it economically feasible to keep even a fairly ancient (by modern car standards) Chevy in service. Not as a hobby car – as a daily driver. It’s why you still see Beetles – which were last sold new in the United States back in 1979 – still being driven, and not just to car shows.
Rust aside, these cars and cars like them can be kept economically operable for 40 or 50 years.
