would say the phase 1 306 a classic

[RetroPug]

Focus RS with 5 cylinders will be at least somewhat special as it was before they went down to 4-pots I'd have thought.
Not necessarily classic, but appreciated.

Today's cars might be a total nightmare in 20-30 years with all the electronics.

Yes true, and I'd say the S16 will be the same.  But not a 1.6 8v ph1 for example, so you can't group ph1s as a classic imo.


Electrics aren't that bad really, I would hope they now use better insulation and loom protection than they did 20 years ago, and there's a lot less wiring to go wrong since CAN was introduced.  Sensors themselves are easy to diagnose and will become cheaper as tech moves on.  However, saying that, we now live in a throwaway society where it makes more financial sense to buy another car than spend a lot fixing one.  Only have to look at spares repairs cars to see the daft prices people are quoted to fix chap old cars.  People also need reliability now that everything is non-stop rushing, which you can have with an old car but at a massive cost and pre-empting failure points.  When you could have a warranty on a new car, or even an aftermarket warranty on something up to 8 years old iirc.  This means a lot of cars that would've been saved/fixed in the 90s, will now just get scrapped for something newer, so won't be many left in 20 years time.  Cost cutting has also ruined cars, the little city bugs (107/C1/Aygo) will never pass 15 years old imo!

A lot of high-end cars rolling off of production lines today have tens of separate, small ECUs/electronic control boxes.
Modern electronics are a lot more reliable, sure, but there is a vast amount more of it to go wrong.

I agree that random small-engined petrol 306s etc. won't really be considered special.
If someone had one in timewarp condition people might be interested as they remember them on the roads but they won't be cult cars.