What do the Alfa Romeo Spider, Audi RS2, Audi A8, Ferrari F355, McLaren F1 and the Toyota RAV4 have in common? That's right, they were all sold in Germany from 1994 and the first examples will be allowed to bear the H license plate from 2024, which officially makes them classic cars. A conspicuous number of sports cars, coupés and convertibles are among the new releases of 1994. But by no means every new model was greeted with joy.
Sports car for almost every account balance
Two Dolce Vita from Alfa Romeo
The Spider and GTV, internally called Tipo 916, designed by Pininfarina for Alfa Romeo and lurking on the road like oversized hand axes, did not cause great enthusiasm. The design was a challenge for fans of the classic Alfa Spider, but front-wheel drive was a provocation and caused a stir 30 years ago. After all, a sports car had to be rear-wheel drive, that's all! However, the excitement quickly subsided once you had driven one of the models, because the Alfa developers had succeeded in creating a chassis with which it was great pleasure to romp over winding country roads. The four-cylinder engines love revs, the six-cylinder is a magnificent engine with typical Italian melting in the voice. These Alfas will rightly be classics from 2024.
Noble Gran Turismo from Aston Martin
The Aston Martin DB7 can also claim the title of classic. To be precise, by the way, since 1994, because the sports car was based on the floor assembly of the Jaguar XJS, whose roots go back to 1975. Aston Martin and Jaguar had belonged to the large Ford Group since 1987 and 1989, which in its abundance of power decreed that the eternally cash-strapped subsidiary Aston Martin urgently needed a successor to the ancient DBS, but had no money for its own development. So the sports car originally planned as the successor to the Jaguar XJS became the new Aston Martin. Visually, the DB7 is a real treat. Ian Callum, who later became Jaguar's head of design, was responsible for its design. Today, a DB7 is an almost affordable entry into the world of luxury sports cars. It is listed at mobile.de from 29,000 euros.
Model diversity at Audi and BMW
Bestseller: The Audi A4 B5
The fifth-generation Audi A4, on the other hand, looks a little like a wallflower. It is certainly a piece of automotive history because it is the successor to the Audi 80 and, with almost 1.7 million units built, rightly passes as a great success for the Ingolstadt-based company. And many are still driving around, with more than 1,100 A4 B5s listed at mobile.de. The model is a tireless endurance runner, because the corrosion protection was exemplary at the time, the construction quality at the highest level. There is the A4 with attractive six-cylinder engines and all-wheel drive. The early diesels with pump-nozzle injection run quite bumpily, but are economical.
Sports icon: The Audi RS2
Car fans owe the beginning of Audi RS history to the predecessor of the B5. After all, the well-behaved Audi 80 Avant B4 was the basis for the Audi RS2 developed with Porsche. What a dream car. When it was released, it was the fastest production Audi ever built, the most powerful anyway: 315 hp in a station wagon, of course with all-wheel drive and only real with the Porsche mirrors and wheels, those were the days. And prices, the RS2 cost 98,900 marks new. That would be about 50,000 euros today. You can't even get an Audi S3 for them in Ingolstadt at the moment.
High-tech in the first Audi A8
And then 1994 was also the year of the A8. It is certainly the highlight of the 1994 model fireworks of the four rings. Concentrated engineering expertise on four wheels. Extremely precisely crafted from aluminum, supported by an aluminum truss, the famous Space Frame. Audi's appearance in the automotive upper house was the manifestation of the company's own slogan "Vorsprung durch Technik" with the A8, which weighs just over 1.5 tons, in the front-wheel drive base model.
The short BMW 3 Series
Audi's favourite competitor from Munich approached the surprised clientele with the BMW 3 Series Compact (E36). The 3 Series, which was docked by 21 centimeters, quickly became the favorite of the older daughters and sons. No wonder, as it brought the joyful rear-wheel drive to the Golf class and thus had a real unique selling point, which made it one of the most successful variants of the Munich middle class during its runtime.
Navi premiere in the BMW 7 Series
At the upper end of the automotive food chain, the BMW 7 Series, E38 model series, fished for solvent customers from 1994 onwards. Classic sedan looks, paired with cream engines and a top-of-the-range chassis, enriched with precise steering, moved the new 7 Series to the top of the wish list of chief physicians, corporate executives and bank bosses interested in driving dynamics. This 7 Series is also historically significant because it was the first car for which a navigation system with map display could be ordered. Carin was the name of the good piece and came from a Bosch subsidiary Blaupunkt.
US exotic: Chrysler Neon
The Chrysler Neon was undoubtedly also a milestone in 1994. The smallest of the big three US manufacturers had deliberately launched a front-wheel drive model for the European market with it – with dimensions that have brought it close to the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C-Class. The success remained modest, as did the quality of the body and engines, which did not come close to the European competitors. But if you buy one now, you are sure to be at the start of the next classic car rally with a particularly rare exotic. In December 2023, mobile.de does not list ten Chrysler Neon, all at a bargain price.
The Eurovan from Citroën, Fiat, Lancia and Peugeot
Back from Detroit, to Europe. Italy and France, often referred to as "Club Med" by the northern Europeans in the car industry, wanted to cut a piece of the big van pie together in the early 1990s and launched the Eurovans. This is how the cloverleaf Citroën Evasion, Fiat Ulysse, Lancia Zeta and Peugeot 806 were created. The four differed moderately in different front and rear bumpers, brand-typical headlights and radiator grilles, and an interior tailored to the respective manufacturer. Technically, the Eurovans were identical. They competed against the Ford Galaxy, Renault Espace and VW Sharan, were able to convince with up to eight seats and two sliding doors and sold excellently in France and Italy.
New edition of the small Ferrari
The Ferrari F355 also had persuasive power. More than 11,000 customers opted for the successor to the 348, which was launched in 1994 with 381 hp, over the course of the service, of which just under 2,700 chose the open-top Spider. The Ferrari entry-level model series is powered by a V8 mid-engine with a displacement of 3.5 liters. Four camshafts and five valves per cylinder make the engine a technical gem. The installation position behind the seats ensures extremely agile and manageable handling.
Fiat Coupé with bold design
Italian sports cars from 1994 are also available at much more popular prices, for example thanks to the Fiat Coupé, which is traded at mobile.de from 3,000 euros. The design, created in Fiat's own studio Centro Stile, is great cinema and comes from none other than Chris Bangle, the very stylist who gave BMW the 7 Series of the E65 series in 2001. Let's put it this way, the Fiat Coupé is more appealing. With a maximum of 220 hp from a turbocharged two-liter four-cylinder front engine, the 2+2-seater successfully mimics the country road lighter. And last but not least, the round taillights are reminiscent of one or the other Ferrari model.
Design diversity in the luxury class
Unusual: The Ford Scorpio
Almost round lights, but at the front, are also very typical features of the second Ford Scorpio generation. It went on sale in Europe in 1994 with a lot of American design, but strangely enough was not offered in the USA. The look of the large, rear-wheel drive Ford is very inadequately described by "controversial". Once you've gotten in and don't have to see the exterior anymore, you'll find yourself in a conservative car with plenty of space and almost dignified good comfort. Equipped with a V6 engine, the Scorpio becomes a comfortable glider for long distances. However, its inner qualities were not enough to inspire the clientele: After just four years of production, it was over, incidentally also with Ford's presence in the upper mid-range segment. This makes the Ford Scorpio certainly a cultural asset of automotive history.
New luxury class from Jaguar
That's what the Jaguar XJ has always been. Its roots go back to 1968: the elegant sedan was virtually a four-door E-Type, from which the essential technical assemblies (engine, transmission, parts of the axles) originated. The X300, introduced in 1994, was already the fifth generation of the large Jaguar and, unlike its predecessor called XJ40, again had the four-eyed face of the first model series. Magnificent and powerful six- and twelve-cylinder engines provide propulsion. The best place in the XJ, even in the version with a longer wheelbase, was always behind the wheel, because you absolutely want to drive a big Jaguar yourself and not leave the joy of it to your chauffeur.
Lancia Kappa: Italian extravagance
Italy's luxury brand Lancia launched an unsuccessful coupé (only 3,721 units were built) and a station wagon (9,193 units) of the top model Kappa in addition to the sedan (104,752 units), but the latter will have to wait until 2028 for classic car status. Since 1994, the elegantly equipped four-door sedan has been ensnaring its customers with a lavish range of engines (four-, five- and six-cylinder, gasoline and diesel engines) and optional leather from the noble manufacturer Poltrona Frau. The Kappa had a hard time against the competition from Audi, BMW and Mercedes in Germany, and correspondingly few models can be found here. At mobile.de, there are not a dozen listed in December 2023. The prices are moderate: from about 2,500 euros you can find what you are looking for and get a classic that really isn't on every parking deck.
Le Mans winner for the road
Guaranteed not on a parking deck, but in an air-conditioned garage is our next anniversary: the McLaren F1. The superlative with three seats in a row – driver's seat in the middle – is based on a monocoque made of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic, as the world's first production vehicle. A total of 107 examples were made by hand – including the racing versions that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995. A 6.1-liter V12 with a maximum of 680 hp, which comes from BMW, makes the road F1 more than 390 km/h fast. New, the super sports car of the British Formula 1 racing team cost from about 1.3 million marks, today prices of over 1.5 million euros are achieved at auctions. We are obviously dealing with a classic that is more than just stable in value.
The last luxury-class Opel
An Opel Omega B certainly won't get any cheaper. It was the last Opel with which the Rüsselsheim-based company was represented in the upper middle class, and quite successfully. The model rolled off the production line for a whole nine years, as a four-door sedan or station wagon called a caravan. Not only the British were served it as the Vauxhall Omega, the Omega also came to dealers in America. There, however, with a different radiator grille and under the name Cadillac Catera, because both Cadillac and Opel belonged to the General Motors brand universe in the early 1990s, as did the Australian manufacturer Holden. That's why the Omega competed in Australia as the Holden Commodore. And because the Aussies have a sense of humour, they also made a pick-up out of the Omega, which was called the Crewman. All Omegas were rear-wheel drive, and especially the models with the torquey V6 engines are great touring cars with plenty of space. BMW sold Opel 2.5-liter diesel engines, which in the Omega had to lag a few horsepower behind the engines that BMW itself put in the 525tds. Too much eye level was not desired. In 1994, the competition from Rüsselsheim was taken seriously in Munich.
Toyota RAV4: The original SUV
The Toyota RAV4 had no competition at its premiere. A fun off-road vehicle, as dynamic as a compact, practically like an off-roader – a completely new vehicle segment was born. Today we call these models SUVs. RAV4 is also such an abbreviation and stands for "Recreational Active Vehicle 4-Wheel Drive" at the world's largest carmaker. Instead of ladder frames, like a Jeep Wrangler or a Mercedes G-Model, the RAV4 relies on a self-supporting body and dispenses with heavy chunks such as a reduction gearbox or lockable axle differentials. At least the differential between the axles can be locked. Together with the short overhangs at the front and rear and the ground clearance, the RAV4 becomes a talented climber when needed. Above all, the short version, with which it all began in 1994, is also a pleasure on winding country roads. Like every Toyota, the RAV4 has a reputation for being indestructible, but models that have been battered off-road tend to corrosion and defects in the axles.
Successful model: The VW Polo 6N
Somehow indestructible was also the third generation of the VW Polo, known internally as the Type 6N. Even Polos that are well over twenty years old are still part of normal traffic in large numbers. The paint may be matte, a dent or two adorns the flanks, the rear wiper is missing, but such a Polo drives with great reliability. The small Wolfsburg is a real long-term car and with this feature comes pretty close to its ancestor Beetle. Unlike the two-door Beetle, the Polo was available as a two- and four-door model, as a variant and even as a notchback model. At this point, we don't conceal the somewhat silly Harlequin with the colorfully painted and jumbled body parts. Of course, neither is the variant with the large folding sunroof – called Open Air. It is clearly the most fun version to be part of one of the big classic events in 2024 with H license plates. By the way, 60 hp is easily enough for this.
