OK, I’m back, and rather to my surprise, it would seem that this fact is indeed correct: the Chevrolet Suburban is the longest-running car model name in continuous use, first used in 1934 and still going strong. Today the current 12th-generation model is a firm favorite with the White House and Texan ranchers with large families.
If this trivial longest-running-name fact had been my crucial million pound question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, I would now be no richer, as I had my money on the Morgan 4/4 being the oldest name plate still in continuous use. The Morgan comes a close-ish second though, the 4/4 name first appearing in 1936, the nomenclature indicating the new-for-1936 Morgan model had four wheels and four cylinders.
Being the sad Anorak that I am, this useless Suburban fact inevitably set my mind racing about other cars that have enjoyed a long fruitful career continuously using the same name plate which still exist today. This excludes the enormous number of models that have seen name revivals, such as the Alfa Romeo Giulia, Bentley Continental, Vauxhall Viva, Buick Rivera, Citroën C4 and Ford Puma, for example.
A number of models and long-lived automotive names such as the Volkswagen Beetle (1938-2018, Beetle name first used c.1951), the Citroën 2CV (42 years; 1948-1990), Ford Falcon (56 years, 1960-2016, spread across the USA, Argentina and Australia), Toyota Corona (44 years, 1957-2001), and so on are worthy of mention but no longer produced. So, here are nine vehicles that have been in continuous production for many years, consistently using the same name.