Discussion on:

The 10 best-selling cars of all time

The Toyota Camry? Total US sales alone exceed 9M units, since 1983. I'm sure Toyota's sold at least 5M outside of the US, no?

Adjusted for inflation the $300 1927 model T would sell for just $3,800 today.

In this economy I'd buy a cheap, dependable, affordable to operate, bare bones car in a minute.

I bet millions of others would too.

when you factor its relatively short lifespan compared to the others.

Was not that the Model T was on the list, but that the VW Golf topped the Beetle, which has decades more production. Or was that only the air-cooled Beetle? Seems like they didn't quit making the classic air-cooled model in Mexico 'till sometime after the "New Beetle" came out. . .

BTW: For most of it's history, the Impalla mostly came with V-8s. ('Though my grandfather had a couple in the '60s which had straight 6s. But he had to special order 'em.)

Why did he prefer the straight 8 vs the V8?

Chevy never made a straight 8. The straight 6 was the economy version.

The answer to a slightly different question: (;-) In the 40s my father liked Fords, because they had reasonably priced V8s. I asked why that mattered and he said he thought they ran smoother than 6s or 4s. I never found much difference although an 8 cylinder might have better acceleration. They key is the displacement. You can get just as much displacement out of 6 cylinders as 8.

As I recall, the original Chevrolet cars and trucks were straight 6, overhead valve engines. Those were the engines that built Chevrolet's reputation. I've had several of them. Around 1955 they came out with the V8. Production of the straight 6 continued too. They did produce a V8 in 1920, but production was not continued. As far as I know, Chevrolet never produced a straight 8. (I had a 47 Chrysler with a straight 8.)

Give the Indian (and chinese) economies time to make their vehicles accessible. These numbers will be crushed. Let's hope those vehicles are super efficient or use a different energy source.

That's my guess.

It is really amazing the Model T made this list, since the US population in the 1920's was ~106 million, whereas in 2010 it was 308,745,538, or only 1/3 the size. As for prices, general inflation means a $500 price for the (then new) 1927 Model A would now be ~$12,000, compared with the 2006 MSFP of a Ford Focus at ~$15000. Its not really an apple-apple comparison, however, since the 2006 Focus is probably a better car than the 1927 Model A. This is an inflation rate of 1,929% since then. See http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/long_term_inflation.asp

Yes, I almost fell off my chair when I read that one.

I was also surprised to see that a pick up was #2

and even more so that it was Ford. I always preferred Chevy pick ups. Their 6 cylinder engines were hard to beat and easy to work on.

Ford: 71.5M
Volkswagen: 66.5M
Toyota: 37.5M
Honda: 36M
Chevy: 14M

That surprised me.

If you take only the top ten models, yes. If you take the top 20, it would probably look different.

Economy and reasonable utility/functionality seems the common thread through all these models. Unfortunately, the mfg. seem to have never gotten it.

Other than the T, none of these cars were the same at the end (or currently) than they were they were at the beginning. The manufacturers created new cars & gave them the same name as an existing or past 1. Sometimes the new car was similar to the old 1, sometimes not.

The Ford model T wins. All of the other models went through multiple iterations. I used to pick up the 1967 toyota corolla and put it on the sidewalk. Same with the first 2 cylinder civic. They were not cars, but carriagized motorcycles. Deathtraps too.
In any case, all that will come from a fully motorized china and india will be death of this planet. Cars and other fossil carbon burning has already done enough damage. Motorizing china alone will turn our atmosphere into a primordial soup.

The drivers there may turn themselves into soup long before the atmosphere....

The Model T did evolve some, though it remained the same basic car. The Beetle did change somewhat more, but I would argue that every one prior to the Super Beetle was still the same basic car - and it outsold the Model T.

The rest of the list, as hoodedswan correctly pointed out, are just names - none of them are close remaining to the same car over the years.

No Ford Pinto in the list, How come? and how about Yugo?

Ford F-series?

Come on. The F-150 and the F-350 are two completely different vehicles, with very few, if any, common parts.

Yeah, you got a point there. The body is probably the only thing in common. I had a Ford E350 van that had ton and a half capacity. All the running gear was much, much heavier than a E150. It was almost bullet proof. Also very heavy, around 6,000lb. (converted to a camper)

These #'s seem a bit low to me. Are these US sales only?
I know the VW bug was a huge seller for years in S. America after they
stopped selling for a time in the US.

wikipedia says the number is correct (about 21 mil in total world count).
From these, 3,3mil were from Brazil, and about 15mil from Germany alone.

0 to 60 in two days. Good economy though.

Did they build any that actually ran? In my area they were called Yu No Go. A dealer had a few for several years, couldn't get rid of them. They ended up being given as premiums on the purchase of new mobile homes.