MOTORTREND CELEBRATES 75 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

The 10 Most Iconic Vehicles of Our Time and Much More

- Justin Westbrook, Justin Banner, Kristen Lee 

MotorTrend’s 75th anniversary is coming in 2024, and we’re ready to celebrate with you in a variety of new ways. The magazine you hold in your hands, a brand founded by Robert E. “Pete” Petersen, is where it all began, and we’re memorializing this legacy through the release of our full archive in digital format, available now. Our digital archive features 75 years of print issues dating back to 1949, all available for free.

In addition, we're marking this milestone with a limitededition Matchbox die-cast replica of the 1949 Kurtis Sport Car, which holds a unique place in our legacy, being the first subject to grace our cover, in September 1949. It’ll be available in 1:64 scale on MattelCreations.com in 2024.

We also have a “MotorTrend 75th” collection of swag available in the MotorTrend store. And we’ve launched a limited edition line featuring the Kurtis Sport Car; each item in these collections pays tribute to our 75-year legacy.

Our passion, like yours, has always been sparked by fascinating vehicles, dozens of which have grown into icons. We don’t just mean the fastest or strongest-selling or even the most significant—we’re talking about the models that serve as representative symbols of the automotive universe.

Our staff spent more time than it cares to admit coming up with the list you’re about to read. After much debate and painful elimination of some of our favorites, we whittled our contenders down to the 10 most iconic cars to come along during our 75-year run. The list begins here in alphabetical order, but we left the most difficult decision up to you, via an online poll that garnered thousands of votes: Which is the most iconic vehicle of them all?