11 Minute Read

Classic car anniversaries to celebrate in 2025

Posted by - Antony Ingram on 17 January 2025 (Updated 20 January 2025)
Car Reviews Motoring Trends
Shelby GT350

As we recently demonstrated with our blog on the 10 most exciting car launches of 2025, there’s a lot for car enthusiasts to look forward to this year. But a new year also presents an opportunity to look back on some significant milestones in automotive history – and as we reach the 25th year of the new millennium, looking back even just a few decades turns up some true greats.

Below then, we’ve covered cars from 20 years to 75 years old, incorporating everything from genre-defining supercars to lightweight sports cars and luxury limousines. It’s a reminder that, great as 2025’s cars should be, the world of classic automobiles has just as much to offer, from their style to powertrain innovations and the purity of their driving experience.

Bugatti Veyron (20 years old)

Bugatti veyron

Image credit: Bugatti

Time makes fools of us all. When the Bugatti Veyron finally arrived in 2005, after a protracted development period, it was easy to imagine that nobody would ever build a faster car. Yet Bugatti itself has gone on to humiliate the original Veyron’s 253mph top speed, reaching 304mph in a Chiron in 2019, and several electric cars have made a mockery of its 2.5-second 0-62mph time.

But the Veyron remains a supercar legend, an effectively cost-no-object exercise in making the ultimate performance car, built at a time when the Volkswagen Group that owned Bugatti was pushing boundaries in every automotive area, from engine configurations (the Veyron used a WR16, effectively two VR8 engines joined at the crank), to luxury cars. No wonder it made it onto our list of The Best Modern Classic Cars of the last 20 Years!

The Veyron’s shape is only improving with time, too. It looked a little indelicate at launch, with the McLaren F1 still fresh in our memories and the pert Porsche Carrera GT arriving the previous year. Today though, the Veyron remains dramatic, exotic, and is still an engineering marvel of the kind we’ll miss when its ilk have all gone electric.

Porsche Boxster / Cayman 987 (20 years old)

Porsche Boxster, Boxster S

Image credit: Porsche

One of the best, and most accessible sports car platforms is now two decades old. The 987 generation Boxster followed on from the original 986 but was joined for the first time by a true fixed-head coupe model, the Cayman – and each was talented enough to make some people question the case for a 911.

Compared to the 986 the Boxster was a little further removed from the equivalent 911 in styling terms, and like its predecessor, Porsche always pegged back performance slightly to avoid the car straying too close to the rear-engined icon. But for balance and feedback, it’s right up there with its larger, more expensive sibling.

And today, a true performance car bargain too. Boxsters are plentiful even under £10,000 and Caymans start a little above that, while under £20k will get an excellent example of either; not MX-5 money exactly, but modest outlay for one of the decade’s best driver’s cars. It’s a modern classic that you’d struggle not to drive every day.

BMW Z8 (25 years old)

BMW_Z8_25th_anniversary

If you’re to create a retro model, starting with something considered almost universally beautiful is never a bad start. According to Chris Bangle – yes, that Chris Bangle, responsible for a styling revolution at BMW in the 2000s that certainly raised a few eyebrows – the Z8 was directly inspired by the stunning 507 of the 1950s.

It wasn’t Bangle who actually designed the Z8, but Henrik Fisker – yes, that Henrik Fisker, the one who also penned the 2005 Aston Martin Vantage, and has gone on to start a couple of less than successful self-titled car companies. The Z8 is undoubtedly one of his best shapes, a riot of curves from stem to stern quite unlike any contemporary BMW. Those ultra-slim rear lights were famously neon, since in the pre-LED days it was the only way to get a light unit so small.

Power came from the BMW M5’s 4-litre naturally-aspirated V8, and if reviewers were lukewarm on the Z8’s driving characteristics at the time – this was not an M-car, just an M-powered cruiser. But it was an instant classic and is still impossibly desirable today; perhaps BMW’s only true exotic of the 21st century.

Lotus 340R (25 years old)

Lotus 340R

Image credit: Classic Driver

Just as there are those who have their supercars tuned for even more speed, there are people out there for whom a Lotus Elise is just too much car. In the last couple of decades the 2-Eleven and 3-Eleven have filled that niche, but back in 2000 it was the job of the Lotus 340R – an Elise stripped back as far as designer Russell Carr, still head of Lotus Design today, could take it. You’d struggle to say it looks a quarter of a century old, that’s for sure.

“340” was originally to be the car’s horsepower-per-tonne figure, and while Lotus couldn’t quite hit the 500kg needed to reach that, at 675kg it’s still 45kg less than the simplest Elise S1, and with a 177bhp K-series engine at its disposal, Lotus still claimed 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds. This extra performance, combined with the cornering benefits of lower weight and an even more uncompromising setup, led Autocar to say the 340R “nudges perfection”, and it’s not unusual to find cars today that have been tweaked for even greater track performance – the 340R’s natural habitat.

Ferrari F50 (30 years old)

Ferrari F50

We’ve lost count of how many companies have called their sparkly new supercar an “F1 car for the road”, but Ferrari had better claim than many when it launched the F50 in 1995. Its 4.7-litre Tipo F130B V12 was, even if loosely, derived from the 3.5-litre V12 of the company’s contemporary F1 machines, and like the 641 Grand Prix car, it was bolted rigidly to the F50’s carbon fibre frame.

The F50 is rightly viewed today as one of the company’s greats. While its soft 1990s styling isn’t to all tastes, the combination of a light carbon chassis, naturally-aspirated V12 and a manual gearshift is timeless – and if 513bhp sounds modest by 2025 standards, few modern cars of double or triple that output can match the F50 for driver interaction.

It’s also rare, the 349-car run making the 1311-strong F40 look like a series production car in comparison. That’s one reason you need more than £2 million just to enter the F50 market, with some going for significantly more at auction. It makes the £329,000 that Ferrari asked in 1995, around £660,000 adjusted for inflation, look like something of a bargain.

MGF (30 years old)

MGF

Image credit: Hagerty

It’s a credit to the engineers at Rover back in the 1990s that the MGF turned out as accomplished a sports car as it did. On a budget surely just a fraction of that which Mazda had used to develop the MX-5, BMW the Z3, or even financially insolvent mid-90s Porsche the Boxster, it created a mid-engined roadster that became the UK’s best-selling sports car.

It really was a Best of British project, from visual input by the likes of Steve Harper (involved with cars such as the Escort Cosworth and Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph), Gordon Sked (long-time Rover designer), and Gerry McGovern (today JLR’s creative chief), to Hydragas suspension by Alex Moulton, to underpinnings which cleverly reutilised existing Rover components, from the lightweight K-series engine to the use of Metro-style subframes.

It wasn’t as sharp as an MX-5, and was never offered with the range of powerplants of a BMW Z3, but the F had a long life, even being briefly revived when MG was bought by the Chinese. Many are still going strong today, their common issues easy to fix, and the fluid Hydragas ride making ever more sense as the UK’s roads deteriorate…

BMW M5 (40 years old)

BMW M5

In 2065 will we view today’s BMW M5 with the same reverence as we hold for the original, launched forty years ago in 1985? The E28 M5 wasn’t the first M car (that was the M1 of 1978), nor the first M-division 5 Series, as the E12 M535i had arrived five years earlier. And it’s probably not the definitive M BMW either, since the homologation-special E30 M3 probably holds that title.

But it does better define the way that BMW M cars are today, not as supercars nor road-racers designed to benefit on-track success, but fast, comfortable, well-trimmed cruisers that can outpace a dedicated sports car down a twisty road. The original M5 had the measure of most of its contemporaries in this regard; it’d give the driver of a Porsche 911 a very hard time.

It used the latest development of the M1’s M88 straight six, with a mighty 282bhp that doesn’t even sound so bad in a 1400kg car today – that’s modern hot hatchback power-to-weight. Beautifully balanced, smooth and sonorous, it’s the true predecessor of today’s M cars big and small.

Mazda RX-7 (40 years old)

Mazda RX-7

Image credit: Mazda

Today we consider the Mazda RX-7 something of a niche product; curious little Mazda playing with its spinning triangle engines but never really troubling the sales charts. And yet by the time the second generation RX-7 arrived in 1985, its predecessor launched in 1978 had sold more than 470,000 units globally. The Porsche 924, a car the RX-7 was oft-derided as a copy of, sold little more than a third of that number.

There must have been high hopes at Mazda for the second-generation car then, and while it never topped the same sales heights (just over 270,000 before it was replaced by 1992’s third generation), the ‘FC’ RX-7 was more of an all-rounder than before, with greater refinement but also, as time went on, greater performance and sophistication.

Weight and size increased, but these changes were offset by independent rear suspension, rack and pinion steering, wider wheels and tyres, and more power from the 1.3-litre twin-rotor engine – 148bhp initially, rising to a turbocharged 197bhp by the end of the decade in turbocharged models.

Jaguar XJS (50 years old)

Jaguar XJS

Replacing the Jaguar E-Type is not an enviable task, but that is what Jaguar set itself with the XJS. Fifty years on, it’s probably fair to say the XJS had a little too much of a mountain to climb, but that’s not to take away from what is an accomplished grand tourer in its own right, and a desirable classic car with its own unique attributes.

Malcolm Sayer’s design is ageing well, for a start. The XJS is long, low, and elegant, all key Jaguar characteristics, its V12 (and later inline six) engines provided ample power, and after its 1975 launch rather unhelpfully arrived on the tail of the fuel crisis, limiting sales, things later picked up and the XJS even proved admirably popular.

The XJS has also largely shed the wide-boy image it suffered in the 1990s when values were at their nadir too, and its relative ubiquity makes the XJS a fairly easy classic to look after, with good parts supply and numerous specialists around. In the shadow of the E-Type it may be, but the XJS, half a century on, is more appealing than ever.

Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 (50 years old)

Mercedes 450

Image credit: Mercedes

There are luxury cars, and then there is the W116-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class – the car that effectively defined the modern luxury saloon, by kicking off the lineup that everyone else strove to beat. But above that, there’s the 450 SEL 6.9, introduced in 1975 to push the S-Class to even greater heights.

Where the regular 450 SEL used a 4.5-litre V8, the extra capacity of the 6.9 lifted power from 225bhp to 286bhp, and torque from 278lb ft to a massive 405lb ft – more than enough to overcome the two-tonne kerbweight, and to post a 0-62mph time of just over seven seconds.

Drive one today, and you might wonder what benefits a modern equivalent really confers – aside from perhaps economy, which Mercedes quoted at 12mpg at the time. Certainly, the 6.9 remains an effortless performer today, handles its mass in corners, is comfortable and spacious (as you’d expect from a 5.1-metre long car) and still looks a million dollars parked up pretty much anywhere.

Alfa GTA (60 years old)

Alfa GTA

Image credit: Getty Images

Probably one of the most desirable classic vehicles this side of seven-figure GTOs and Gullwings, the Alfa Romeo GTA is 60 years old in 2025. Beautiful styling, enviable racing heritage and a drive that still stacks up six decades on will no doubt ensure its continued desirability for another six decades, too.

The GTA was created to win in touring car racing, and it did just that. Alfa, and specifically racing arm Autodelta, took the 105-series Giulia GT and replaced its exterior panels with an aluminium alloy, its wheels with magnesium items, and employed numerous other weight-saving measures to help the 113bhp, 1.6-litre twin-cam four do its best work.

The car was developed well into the 1970s, past the end of its 1969 production, but interest has only climbed over the last decade or so as the likes of Alfaholics, specialists in maintaining and racing the original GTA, have created their own restomod homages.

Shelby GT350 (60 years old)

Shelby GT350

Image credit: Ford

Carroll Shelby wasted little time in making the Ford Mustang faster. Ford’s “pony car” had only arrived mid-1964, yet by 1965, Shelby had turned the fastback variant into a go-faster model by dropping in the 289 cubic inch V8 from the Shelby Cobra.

Like the Alfa GTA above, the GT350 was created primarily for racing, and was campaigned successfully in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) racing at virtually all levels. So popular was it among club racers, in fact, that when rental company Hertz added GT350s to its fleet in 1966, in a distinctive black and gold colour scheme, it’s rumoured that more than a few saw a little more action on a weekend than their typical rental cars…

Shelby built only 562 GT350s in the model’s first year, and values reflect this: valuation experts Hagerty say a GT350 in “good” condition will set you back more than $200,000 in the current market, while an immaculate car sold for nearly half a million dollars with Mecum in May 2024.

Lancia Aurelia (75 years old)

Lancia Aurelia

Image credit: Stellantis

Lancia Aurelia – it just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? The Fulvia, Stratos, and Delta Integrale might have rallying heritage to their name, and be among the most desirable postwar models from the Lancia brand, but the Aurelia, 75 this year, is still a hugely special automobile.

For a start, it’s credited as using one of the first production V6 engines, a compact 1.8-litre design (a size only Mazda has matched with a road-going V6, and Mitsubishi has beaten with a 1.6-litre unit) that allowed smooth running while many of the Aurelia’s contemporaries chugged along with four-cylinder units.

The Aurelia is a wonderfully elegant shape too, with a strong body shell that ditched B-pillars (and had doors that open away from each other), and housed relatively advanced technology for the era, including inboard brakes and radial tyres. GTs have long been valuable collector cars, but perhaps 2025 is the year the berlina will enter the limelight.

Volkswagen Type 2 (75 years old)

Volkswagen Type 2

Image credit: Getty Images

Good ideas never go out of style, and with the buzz around Volkswagen’s appropriately-named ID.Buzz, and the continued popularity of its Transporter line, it’s clear there’s still enthusiasm for a large, practical van with a little more style than more workaday equivalents.

Both the Buzz and the Transporter owe their existence to the original, the Volkswagen Type 2 – a vehicle that, in 2025, has reached its 75th birthday. One of the many effective spin-offs from the wartime Beetle project, the Type 2, bus, kombi, microbus, or whatever else you like to call it, is just as – if not more – iconic than the Beetle itself.

And while it’s clearly a product of the 1950s in its style, and even more so in how it drives, the concept itself really hasn’t dated. Performance isn’t its strong suit, but piling in a load of friends, family, or possessions, or simply loading the panel van up with work paraphernalia, is no less feasible in this three-quarter-century old van than in a modern one. It could be the most significant light commercial vehicle of all time.

Flexible car storage for motors of all ages

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No matter what automotive anniversary your car is celebrating, at Windrush, we offer flexible car storage for motors of all ages. From classic cars to those straight off the production line, every car receives the same 6-star service. Contact us to discuss options at our indoor car storage facilities in the Cotswolds and London.

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