Original data19802029

Average car length by decade

The average new car grew from 4,296 mm long in the 1980–89 to 4,594 mm in the 2020–29 — 7% longer. Measured across 101,691 model variants.

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

Cars keep getting bigger: the average is 7% longer than in the 1980–89.

PeriodLength (mm)Sample
1980–894,2966,232
1990–994,37412,713
2000–094,41329,621
2010–194,56640,970
2020–294,59412,155
Download CSVFirst-party data computed from 101,691 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.com Score™