The Rolls-Royce Camargue stayed on sale for 11 years, and it was far from the longest-running coupe of its era. These nine luxury coupes kept rolling off their lines for a decade or more. One of them was even built to replace the Porsche 911.
Long runs say a lot about a car. Makers keep a design going when buyers keep asking for it, or when nothing better is ready. That’s why every date and production figure below comes from a heritage record, a club or a period source.
1. 1975–1986 Rolls-Royce Camargue
First, Pininfarina drew the Camargue, and it rode on the Silver Shadow floorpan with the same 6.75-liter V8. Even so, it shared surprisingly little else with that car. Rolls-Royce priced it at £29,250 in 1975, a figure that works out to about £200,000 in 2023 money.
Rolls-Royce built just 531 Camargues between 1975 and 1986, according to Hagerty UK. That’s a slow trickle for an 11-year run. Even so, a Rolls-Royce Camargue now costs far less than its launch price suggests. In 2023, Hagerty’s price guide put a 1981 car at £22,800 to £63,900, and one sold at Anglia Car Auctions for £19,440.
2. 1975–1996 Jaguar XJ-S
Jaguar launched the XJ-S in September 1975 with a 5.3-liter V12 and a price of £8,900. The car then kept evolving instead of retiring. Later came six-cylinder engines, a convertible and a 6.0-liter V12.
The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust owns the very last one, a 1996 V12 coupe registered P60 XJS. By then the coupe listed at £50,500, and total output stood at 115,413 cars over a 21-year run. According to Secret Classics, that final ice-blue coupe and a red 4.0 convertible both left the line on April 4, 1996.
3. 1972–1989 Aston Martin V8
The Aston Martin V8 arrived in May 1972, and the last one came in December 1989, when the Virage replaced it. Under the long hood sat Tadek Marek’s all-alloy 5,340 cc V8 with four camshafts. Also, each engine carried the name of the man who built it.
Classic & Sports Car counts 2,951 V8s across those 17 years. In 1983, a new one cost £40,000. Meanwhile, the hotter V8 Vantage joined the range in February 1977 with four Weber carburetors and about 380 bhp. In 2021, the magazine put a show-condition standard V8 at about £150,000.
4. 1976–1989 BMW 6 Series E24
BMW showed the first 630CS and 633CSi to the press in Marbella, Spain, in February 1976, then at Geneva a month later. Meanwhile, Paul Bracq’s studio shaped the body, and Karmann built the shells before final assembly at Dingolfing. The coupe then stayed in production for 13 years.
Total output reached 86,216 cars of all versions, according to Ate Up With Motor. In fact, yearly volume peaked late, at 9,626 cars in 1985, nearly a decade after launch. Even in 1989, its final year, BMW built 1,064 of them.
5. 1981–1991 Mercedes-Benz 380 SEC to 560 SEC (C126)
Mercedes-Benz unveiled its S-Class coupes at the Frankfurt show in September 1981 as the 380 SEC and 500 SEC. Bruno Sacco’s team also styled them. A 1985 update then swapped the 380 for the 420 SEC and added the 560 SEC at the top.
The coupes ran for about ten years, and output stopped in 1991 at 74,060 cars, according to the Mercedes-Benz Club of America’s 500 Section. The 500 SEC sold best, with 30,184 built. By contrast, the 420 SEC was the rarest at 3,680.
6. 1977–1995 Porsche 928
Porsche premiered the 928 at Geneva in March 1977 as “the new big sports car from Porsche.” At the time, the company believed the 911 had reached the end of its potential. So the plan was for this water-cooled V8 transaxle coupe to replace it.
That never happened, but the 928 earned its own long life anyway. It won the 1978 Car of the Year award, which Porsche’s newsroom calls a first and only for a sports car. Production ran through 1995, and Porsche built 61,056 in all.
7. 1991–2003 Bentley Continental R
The Continental R made a surprise debut at the 1991 Geneva show. Designers John Heffernan and Ken Greenley shaped it, and under the hood sat a turbocharged 6.75-liter V8. Driven to Write calls it the first unique Bentley in over a quarter of a century. The same source says its £178,000 price made it the most expensive production car in the world in 1991.
The car then stayed in the catalog until 2003. Over those 12 years, Bentley built 1,548, according to Supercars.net. That total covers 1,335 standard cars, 158 Mulliners, 44 Le Mans Series cars and 11 Final Series cars.
8. 1991–2000 Lexus SC 400
Lexus launched the SC in the United States in June 1991 as a 1992 model. At the same time, Japan got the matching Toyota Soarer. Toyota’s Calty studio in California drew the body, starting in 1987 and signing off the design at the end of 1989.
The SC 400 used the same 4.0-liter V8 as the LS sedan, and a 3.0-liter six joined it in the U.S. in 1992. The first generation then lasted nine years, according to Lexus UK’s own history. Its successor, the SC 430, followed that long first run.
9. 1976–1982 Bristol 603
Bristol designed the 603 in-house as an all-new car to replace the 411. However, it kept the familiar Bristol chassis under a new body. Power came from Chrysler V8s: a 5.2-liter in the 603E and a 5.9-liter in the 603S.
The smaller engine went after 1977, according to Classic & Sports Car. Then, at the end of 1982, Bristol retouched the same body and renamed it Brigand or Britannia. The line didn’t stop there. Car & Classic traces the later Blenheim straight back to the 603, and a 1998 Blenheim S2 used a reworked 5.9-liter Chrysler V8 with 260 hp.
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