AutoCAD drawing exported as PDF chart with car models sorted by year of launch and length, showing how much cars grew in dimensions from 1945 to 2025.
2025 update contain 2200 car models from mainstream European brands.
For a complete database of cars sold in Europe (incuding American and Asian imports) you can buy European car database (Excel and CSV available).
2013-2014 initial version
I made this in April 2013, after I was contacted by an architect, interested in “average car length”, for an automated parking system. I updated once, in November 2014. In 2015 I decided to keep updating paid products only, so this free product became abandoned.
To avoid overcrowding the chart, I included 640 popular car models produced in Europe from WW2 to present, hatchback, saloon, estate, coupe, cabriolet, etc. For Volkswagen I included only Lupo, Polo, Golf, Jetta, Passat, Phaeton, excluding Scirocco, Corrado, Beetle. I also excluded all MPV, SUV, etc, as their length are within range of regular cars (no SUV sold in Europe is longer than Mercedes S-Class). Also it do not contains Asian imports because they offer a small range of cars within middle range of European cars, or American imports because are too rare in Europe.
Source of data: AutoKatalog magazines for 1980-present and Wikipedia for 1940-1980s. I spent 10 hours to write each car model at correct position in the chart, based on launch year and length in millimeters, using AutoCAD then exported as PDF. Useful for garage builders and students or hobbyists researching the car evolution.
2025 version
After 10 years I decided to do an update recreate a better chart. Here are my ideas:
- Chart is based on Germany car database (1960s-present) for better accuracy. For 1940s-1960s cars I use Wikipedia (some models have approximative dimensions).
- Chart includes MPV, SUV and Crossovers, because some makes (Ford) ended production of most hatchbacks and saloons: Ka+ in 2021, Mondeo in 2022, Fiesta in 2023. Focus is the only one remaining in production as 2025.
- Chart indicate now length × width × height (2014 chart had only length).
- Each make is a layer, so you can show/hide makes you are interested to compare, to reduce texts overlap (2014 version had each class a layer).
- (optional) move models within year according month of launch.
Other ideas are welcome!
Nice information. For models that exist in multiple years it’d be interesting to see the change over time