On the Brink of Extinction: Once-popular cars that may disappear in the next 10 years

Pick any car on this list and, five years ago, they seemed to be everywhere. Today, they’re becoming rare sights indeed. And five to 10 years from now, they’ll mostly be gone. It’s the march of time intersecting with their generally disposable nature, these five are our picks for imminent extinction:

1. 1995-2005 Chevrolet Cavalier: The last generation Chevy Cavalier seems certain to go the way of the two previous generations of Cavaliers and essentially retreat to the automotive fossil record. The third-generation Cavalier wasn’t exactly built like a new Cruze and the fact that they fold up like an Origami swan in a collision hasn’t helped much either. In fact, The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has noted that the Cavalier boasts among the highest fatality rates of any car recorded.

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2. 1995-99 Dodge/Plymouth Neon: The Neon was a state-of-the-art small car when it was introduced in 1994. Car guy extraordinaire Bob Lutz, then with Chrysler, saw to that. Sadly, most first-generation Neons had a built-in expiration date in the form of a head gasket that would fail at around 60,000 miles. When the cars were younger, Dodge dealers helped out with the normally $900 expense, but nearly 20 years down the road, with the herd thinned by head-gasket failures and the few surviving cars regularly abused by “The Fast and the Furious” generation, extinction probably looms.
3. 1997-2002 Ford Escort/Mercury Tracer: These were the bad old days for Ford small cars. Long before we got the stellar cars that Ford was peddling in Europe (like the current Focus and Fiesta), we got stuff like the Hermosillo, Mexico-built Escort and Mecury Tracer. The sedan and wagon were the epitome of appliances for people who didn’t care about cars. The peppy ZX2 coupe, was the only exception. Today, it seems like there’s a “do not resuscitate” order out on all third-generation Escorts — they’re disappearing fast.
4. 1984-90 Plymouth Voyager/Dodge Caravan: The Voyager/Caravan was a category-creating milestone vehicle. And although the minivan seems to have been supplanted by the crossover as the vehicle of choice for family transport, the original Chrysler minivan deserves to be preserved. Sadly, just the opposite is happening. Between poor paint (which often peels off hoods in sheets), the resulting rust and the hand grenade-like Ultradrive transmissions, few of these classic box-like minivans remain.

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5. 1995-2000 Ford Contour: Although billed by Ford as a “one-world” design, the North American version was clearly inferior in most counts to the European version, the Ford Mondeo.  Only the hot SVT versions stand a chance of long-term survival.  Like the Cavalier, the Contour was slammed in the safety department by the IIHS.