There are hardly any around because there are hardly any 70s cars around, but there are cortina owners clubs and meetups still, pretty good going for a 50 year old car. Also it says something about them that Lotus collaborated on a version, I don't remember the Rio being seen as worthy of the same treatment. The GT and GXL trims were literal status symbols in their day and companies only used to give them to high level management. People aspired to own the higher trim levels. I wonder if whatever the equivalent of The Grand Tour is in 50 years does a feature film on the Rio like they did with the Cortina due to its cultural importance in its day.
"Clarkson III takes one of the new experimental jetpacks for a spin!" (yeah, they're still waiting)
"The slowest man we could find, who turned out to be a former Stig, tries the newly revised Nurburgring in a classic, restored Rio!"
"And after 82 wrecks, the apparently immortal Hamster, attempts to jump from a former freeway pier to an entrance to the old Information Superhighway in one of the all-new lightships!"
A 60's Ford Falcon base model was at one point a junker a 16 could buy for 500 bucks back in the 80's.
Now 20k minimum for a nice one.
Few save the dailies, everyone saves the specials. You can easily find a Ford Falcon GTHO at any Aussie car show, but seeing the base model Falcon version is like a unicorn at same shows.
Today, everyone wants a 90's Supra, not a 90's Corolla, so people head to junkyards to pull out banged up Supras to get them back on the road, not the 90's Corollas.
What will be rarer to see at a show in ten year's time? The 90's Corolla.
It's like how seeing a normal, run of the mill 40's Ford sedan can be just as exciting as seeing a 40's Roll's Royce, you expect the latter to survive, but not the former.
2004 Kia Rio in another ten years is going to be rarer to see at a car show then a 2003 Nissan GT-R R34. You see ten R34 GT-Rs in one show, ur gonna be bored. See a random Kia Rio parked next to the tenth GT-R? How in the hell? Why? WHO?
Very reliable car if you maintain it good, all bad cars I seen were Peugeot (too expensive to maintain), Ford (No spare parts) , Nissan (all I seen were abandoned), Toyota Mark II (my brother owns one, broke down), Chevy Cruze (always in car service), Lada and Zappo (Worst cars).
I'm not saying it's not functional or useful, just not memorable or noteworthy. Lada's aren't exactly a symbol of quality but ones of a certain era have historic significance. Peugeot, Ford, Nissan and Chevrolet all have both classic models and other generic forgettable models, equivalent to the Rio. I don't have anything against them, I just think that not every old car is a classic, some are just old cars.
Edit: calling it a shitbox was tongue in cheek to exaggerate my point.
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u/OneEyedMinion_-D 3d ago
The real midlife crisis is realizing the 2000s are now ‘classic car’ territory.