From the ’50s to the Modern Era, Enthusiasts Drive Their Cars Similar Miles

Once cars transition from merely used vehicles to collector pieces, driver behavior tends to change. Cars that were once put to regular use have become weekend cruisers or toys for special trips. As such, the annual mileage put on these vehicles tends to be considerably less than what was put on them years ago (with some very notable exceptions—looking at you, Toyota Land Cruiser).

That said, with cars from the ’90s through the modern era becoming collector-worthy, enthusiast vehicles are more reliable than ever. Fox-body Ford Mustangs, C6 Chevrolet Corvettes, and even Lexus LFAs can cover more ground in greater comfort and capability than the Mustangs, Corvettes, and Toyota 2000GTs of yesteryear. That got us wondering—does any one era of collector car get driven more than others?

Looking at the same vehicles offered through an online auction more than once is one way to determine how many miles people drive. If a car appeared in an online auction in 2022 with 63,000 miles and again in 2024 with 65,000 miles, it only covered 1,000 miles per year. Repeat public sales data does not capture examples like a single-owner-from-new 1974 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia still in daily use, but for the purposes of comparing usage between eras of cars, this information provides abundant data—our sample included over 9,000 vehicles.

What did we find? Vehicles from the 1950s through the 1970s were driven several hundred miles per year, while those from the RADwood era (1980s and 1990s) were driven 1316 and 1404 miles per year, respectively. The most modern vehicles from the 2020s were driven 1848 miles per year. Most interestingly, even with all the modern features and reliability found in the vehicles from the ’90s to today, people are still driving them only about two-and-a-half to three times as far as those 1960s cars and trucks—when it comes down to it, that’s only a few more fill-ups per year.

How many miles are being driven among the popular makes? Among the Big Three, Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge are first through third. Also, Toyotas are driven way more than Hondas, and Porsches are driven further than Ferraris.

Looking a bit deeper into the data, the median miles driven per year worked out to be about half the average (mean) miles per year driven for each model year decade. That the median is less tells us that a significant chunk of vehicles are not being driven much, and that a smaller number of people are laying down a lot of miles. Importantly, the consistency between median and mean data across every decade shows that era doesn’t appear to be much of a factor in how these vehicles are used.

How many miles per year are you driving your enthusiast vehicle?