If a car becomes unusable due to old age, wear, or damage as a result of an accident, there is one last documentary operation that needs to be carried out with it — deregistration due to scrapping. This service is provided by the service centers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs free of charge, but it should be noted that a scrapped car cannot be registered again. Every month, Ukrainians apply for this service about two thousand times.
Passenger cars are most often written off, in particular, there were 1,454 applications for their scrapping during September 2025. 323 trucks and 61 buses were also permanently removed from the roads.
Experts from the Institute of Car Market Research have identified the Top 10 vehicle models that were most often deregistered due to scrapping. This rating is direct confirmation that the Ukrainian car fleet is undergoing an active phase of «clearing out old stocks». The absolute dominance in the list is occupied by VAZ models — from 2106 and 2101 to 2109 and 2107. This is not a coincidence, but the logical finale of the life cycle of an entire automotive era: the «classics» have served their time, often reaching the age of 30-40 years, and are now deservedly retiring. Their mass write-off is the main reason for the rejuvenation of the average age of the fleet.
However, the list also demonstrates the beginning of the write-off of cars that formed the basis of the Ukrainian fleet already in the 2000s. The third place is taken by the Daewoo Lanos, which, although much younger than the Zhiguli, is actively being decommissioned due to the exhaustion of its resource after hard operation (taxi, commercial use). The presence of the GAZ Gazelle and GAZ Volga in the top also confirms that the old commercial and service vehicles are also coming to an end. In fact, the market is getting rid of the oldest and most worn-out ballast, preparing a place for younger cars imported from abroad.
Most of the culling is due to the age of the vehicles, which is confirmed by the average age of the vehicles that underwent this operation last month — 27 years for cars, 26 for trucks, and 24 years for buses.
Among all the cars whose license plates were permanently removed last month, the GAZ-51 truck, the flatbed version, lasted the longest. It was released in 1953 — it is a true veteran who was the same age as a number of landmark events: from the coronation of Elizabeth II and the first successful conquest of Everest to the start of production of the legendary Chevrolet Corvette.
However, this hard worker, who «stood out» in the service for over 70 years, probably never learned about most of these events. His simple radio, if he had one at all, certainly could not receive waves from behind the Iron Curtain, where these global landslides were taking place. He simply conscientiously did his job, becoming the oldest unit to officially leave the Ukrainian fleet in September.
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