You Might Laugh At Gen Z’s Favorite “Classic Car”
Every generation complains that the kids are ruining everything. Music gets worse. Nobody knows how to fix anything anymore. And young people certainly don’t care about cars. There’s just one problem with that last complaint: The numbers don’t add up. Gen Z drivers say they love driving, are involved in car culture, want classic cars, and they’re already developing their own collector-car canon. The funny part isn’t that young people today like old cars. It’s what they define as old. Their favorite “classic” will make anyone who remembers the 1990s feel like a vampire.
Gen Z Might Have More Classic Car Enthusiasts Than The Boomers Are
Every few years, someone bemoans young Americans abandoning car culture. A 2013 New York Times essay was literally titled “The End of Car Culture,” and by 2016 the Associated Press addressed the panic over young people delaying licenses and car purchases. Turns out it’s all a load of bull. Hagerty’s 2024 Future of Driving survey found 60% of Gen Z respondents interested in owning a classic car, compared with just 31% of Baby Boomers.
That doesn’t mean all these respondents already have a classic car. Or that you’ll see them at your next muscle car meet. But here’s what we know for sure. 77% of Gen Z respondents either like or love driving, while Gen Z named YouTube (39%), Instagram (38%), and actually driving enthusiast cars (35%) among its top ways of interacting with the hobby.
The celebrities speaking to that generation are in on the trend too. Actor Sydney Sweeney documented rebuilding a 1969 Ford Bronco, replacing suspension parts, pulling axles, fabricating a hood latch, and even swapping the transmission so she could daily it in Los Angeles. Singer Zach Bryan built an entire “Belting Bronco” sessions brand around the beloved 1988 Ford he’s driven for years. But these two are less tastemakers and more disciples of the hobby. How do we know? Their passion for the Blue Oval puts them firmly in the minority. Gen Z is into a very different vehicle category.
Before we look at Gen Z’s most-inquired-about classic, here’s an intriguing anomaly. There are certainly Gen Z enthusiasts into old Mustangs and Broncos. But when Hagerty analyzed the classics Gen Z was quoting insurance on, the company noticed something. There are a handful of cars that enthusiasts, even those as young as the Millennial generation, might never consider collectible. But Gen Z drivers can’t get enough of them.
The first three cars that Gen Z appreciates more than other generations could not be more different. The 1991–1996 Honda Beat is a mid-engine, rear-drive kei-class roadster whose 656cc naturally aspirated three-cylinder claimed 63 horsepower at a screaming 8,100 rpm. The 1989–2000 Toyota Celsior is the opposite idea: Japan’s Lexus LS relative, launched with a 4.0-liter DOHC V8 and the manners of a luxury flagship. Then there is the 1999–2001 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI, the 2.0-liter turbocharged AWD rally weapon advertised around Japan’s familiar 276-horsepower ceiling. But all three have one intriguing thing in common: They weren’t originally sold in the U.S. Today, enthusiasts must either buy them in Japan and have them shipped over, or find one that’s already been imported.
The next two vehicles on Hagerty’s list of overlooked cars that Gen Z loves were both originally sold in the U.S.A. Chevrolet sold the Cobalt SS with a 205-horsepower supercharged 2.0-liter four, then turned the wick up with a 260-horsepower turbocharged 2.0-liter version; both sent power to the front wheels through a manual gearbox. Acura’s 2001–2006 RSX was another front-drive car, with the Type-S pairing a high-revving K20 four-cylinder with a six-speed manual and claiming roughly 200 horsepower. Even though these two tuner-era cars never became Fast and Furious famous, a new generation of enthusiasts is discovering them anyway. But none of these five is Gen Z’s most-inquired-about classic.
The Classic Gen Z Finds The Most Intriguing: The Original Mazda Miata
Hagerty reports that the car Gen Z enthusiasts most often inquire about classic insurance coverage for is Mazda’s MX-5 Miata. You may be thinking, “The Miata is a modern car–not a classic!” But Hagerty specifies the “NA” Miata. In U.S. model-year terms, the NA-generation ran from 1990 through 1997. The early 1.6-liter cars made just 116 horsepower and weighed roughly 2,150 pounds; later NAs got a 1.8-liter four making 128, and eventually 133 horsepower. Mazda built just over 430,000 first-generation cars in total. A 1990 Miata is now 36 years old; in 1990, a 36-year-old car was a 1954.
Bob Hall was still an automotive journalist when Mazda R&D chief Kenichi Yamamoto asked what the automaker should build next. Hall had grown up riding around in his father’s British roadsters. He drew a simple two-seat, rear-drive sports car on a Hiroshima conference-room blackboard. Somebody photographed the sketch, erased it, and everyone went to a baseball game. Two years later, Mazda hired Hall. In 1982, Yamamoto tapped him on the shoulder and told him the company had greenlit a lightweight sports car.
Mazda’s Tokyo studio pulled for a modern mid-engine, rear-drive sports car. Hiroshima proposed a front-engine, front-drive car. Hall’s California group showed up with the supposedly stale formula: engine in front, power to the rear, and a soft top. Hall remembered that RWD was considered old-fashioned by the 1980s, and Mazda’s own history says FWD would have been cheaper because it could reuse existing hardware. But the Miata’s traditional driving manners won out. The rest is, as they say, history.
The Traditional Roadster Is Obsolete, And That’s Exactly The Point
The 2026 MX-5 Miata Sport starts at $30,430, keeps a six-speed manual standard, and gets 181 horsepower from a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter four-cylinder. Mazda sold 925 Miatas in the U.S. in August 2026 and 6,909 through the first eight months of the year, actually 2% ahead of the same stretch in 2025. Fast-forward more than 35 years, and Mazda is selling brand-new cars with a configuration that was in turn inspired by a 35+ year-old formula. Hall’s idea succeeded so wildly that one of Mazda’s cheapest cars has somehow become its most recognizable: a budget-priced halo car that’s simply impossible to kill. What makes the Miata so timeless? Perhaps the fact that it never tried to be timely.
A “roadster” is one of those rare vehicle segments that transcends make and model. A Mazda Miata–whether from 1990 or 2026–has more in common with an MG, Triumph, Alfa Spider, or BMW Z3 than that Z3 has with a brand-new BMW X7. Mazda was wise enough not to fix what wasn’t broken: engine up front, rear-drive, two seats only, a five-speed stick, a manually operated soft top, and modest naturally aspirated power. In exchange for everything Miata buyers gave up, they got to hug the road like nothing else at the same price point.
Where the Mazda differs from the roadsters of yesteryear, it does so just to accentuate the formula. The double-wishbone suspension at all four corners improves the handling personality inherent to the lightweight car. Instead of carburetors, it got a fuel-injected 16-valve DOHC engine. But Mazda tuned the 1.6-liter intake to echo the induction sound of old dual-carbureted sports cars, while selling the car with the mass-production dependability expected from a modern Japanese brand. Finally, the computer-developed unit body engineered for modern safety benefited from what Mazda branded as the Power Plant Frame, directly connecting the gearbox and differential. Translation: less drivetrain slop means sharper responses.
All That’s Old Is New Again
Zoom out far enough, and Gen Z isn’t igniting a classic car revolution. It’s taking part in an American tradition. There’s no 1948 poll asking the Greatest Generation how badly it wanted old cars, but we hardly need one: they’re the generation that helped create the postwar hot rod boom. Hot Rod magazine launched in 1948, and AACA membership climbed from just 850 that year to 23,000 by 1969, then over 50,000 by 1985. A generation later, Baby Boomers bid the muscle cars of their youth up to blue-chip collectibles. Gen X moved the “classic car” cutoff date up again, helping create the RADwood classic car segment. There’s a reason AACA adopted a rolling 25-year eligibility rule. The more things appear to change, the more they stay the same. Even Gen Z’s choice of favorite classic cars may be entirely predictable.
Life stage likely matters as much as generation identity. Take Millennials, for example. Hagerty says they most often inquire about 1988–2000 GMT400 trucks and SUVs. For a cohort now largely in its 30s and early 40s, this tracks perfectly. An old Chevy can be a Saturday project and still haul lumber, camping gear, furniture, or mulch on Sunday. And most of these folks have too many dogs–or kids–to consider a two-seat roadster. But Gen Z drivers often have shorter passenger lists.
So Gen Z isn’t killing the classic-car hobby. It’s taking its rightful turn redefining it. The Greatest Generation had ’32 Fords, Boomers had muscle cars, and Gen X pushed forgotten 1980s and 1990s machinery into the collector world. Now a generation too young to remember the original Miata as a new car sees an increasingly rare combination of low weight, rear-wheel drive, two seats, and a stick shift. The definition of a classic car was never etched in iron. But like a reliable old Mazda’s odometer, it rolls to a new number every year.
Sources: Hagerty, Mazda, Honda, Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA), SEMA, CBS News / Associated Press, and Entertainment Tonight
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