By: IOL Motoring Staff
South Africans are no strangers to the idea of a car company building a specific model for somewhat longer than the usual four to seven year life cycle.
At the end of the last decade we lost the Citi Golf, a Golf 1 that had been produced locally and tarted up too many times to mention since first rolling off the Uitenhage production line back in 1978.
Let's not forget the Nissan 1400 (originally a Datsun 1200) that had an even longer life - 1971 to 2008. And do you care to remember the 1985 Mazda 323, 1988 Toyota Conquest/Tazz and 1990 Fiat Uno that all made it well past the millennial barrier?
South Africa is by no means the only place in the world where cars are given a lease on life that's well beyond their international sell-by dates and it was quite amusing to search for other examples from around the world, which you'll see in our gallery above.
Bad news for hippies, though, is that Volkswagen's T2 Kombi - which is still made in Brazil - is likely to be killed off soon, due to safety regulations that make dual front airbags and ABS brakes mandatory in that country. VW says it would have to virtually design a new car to make that possible.
It was also interesting to note that the second-generation Jetta is still alive and well in China, even sporting a facelift.