Original data19802029

Average car length by decade

The average new car grew from 4,295 mm long in the 1980–89 to 4,567 mm in the 2020–29 — 6% longer. Measured across 100,840 model variants.

1980–89
1990–99
2000–09
2010–19
2020–29
The takeaway

Cars keep getting bigger: the average is 6% longer than in the 1980–89.

PeriodLength (mm)Sample
1980–894,2956,182
1990–994,37412,712
2000–094,41329,619
2010–194,56640,967
2020–294,56711,360
Download CSVFirst-party data computed from 100,840 car variants indexed on cars-data.com. · Updated 2026-07-12
How this is measured

Average manufacturer-quoted overall length (mm), grouped by decade of first model year. Values outside 2,500–6,000 mm are dropped as data errors. One row per variant.

Car statistics · Cars-Data Score™