Good reasons why to buy a classic - Financial
Ok lets get the less glamorous reason for buying an elderly car out of the way first, which for many owners of more run-of-the-mill family type cars
is an all too good reason on its own - it can make excellent financial sense. I'm thinking here of people who choose to buy a more mainstream set of
classic wheels, as opposed to those who seek out the obscure and/or less practical alternatives (I'm thinking of exotica and bubble cars here!).
Buying and
running something like a Morris Minor or Anglia 105E for instance, can save you a £wad in motoring bills, when compared to some dull piece of tin from
any number of manufacturers nowadays. Go and buy some anonymous blob from a far eastern company lets say, and wave bye bye to a stack of money in
depreciation alone. So long as you look after your classic Morris, or whatever, you are in with a good chance of at least maintaining the value of the car
throughout the time you keep it. In rare cases it may appreciate in value, but don't hold your breath on that one! Then take insurance. Although sometimes
you have to be over say 25 to qualify for many of the classic insurance policies that are available at the moment, the cost of insuring said Moggie when compared
with the premium asked for insuring say a Daewoo or a Golf can be considerably less, probably no more than a couple of hundred quid tops, and if you
plump for a limited mileage policy then it'll be a lot less. Insuring a modern however can often involve spending a fair few hundred quid.
Then theres road tax.
So long as your classic was built pre-1973 (applies to UK readers only!) it should qualify for zero rated road tax - you still need to display a tax disc but hey
presto! - it costs zilch for a whole 12 months! That'll save you 160 quid a year in one go. So, hows about fuel economy? Well, a well set up Mog should easily
return 35+ to the gallon, which compares favourably with a similar size modern such as an Escort for example.
I even know a keen Moggie type who has converted his machine to run on LPG which, given his 60 mile a day round trip to work, is saving him a fair few pennies.
As for other running costs, well things are usually in your favour here too. Although I don't have any specific costs to hand, if when parking you nudge the back of your Mog against a lamp post, budget
for a replacement rear lamp around £25 or so, depending where you go. Do the same in a Hyundai and see how much a replacement rear light assembly costs.
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Social
Who buys classic cars? Well, owners with deep and not so deep pockets, that's who! Ask many owners why they run a classic car and they often reply that owning and running a classic car can be a very sociable pastime indeed, depending on your approach. Simply running an old car means you can get waved and
flashed at (!) by other like-minded individuals as your potter around in your own historic machine. If you so choose, you can go one step further and join an
owners club. Fortunately these clubs are not the sole preserve of bearded pipe smoking anoraks, despite the popular misconception of what a classic car owner
might look like. Heavens, even the Queen herself has a magnificent Rover P5 in her fleet, and to the best of my knowledge she's never been seen sucking a pipe or
greasing up her propshaft joints on the side of the road. Whether you join a club specialising in a particular marque, or a local classic club catering for owners of
any oddball machines, you can be sure to have some fun and at the same time have a rich vein of knowledge in which to tap should you encounter a problem with
your own car, as members are always willing to help out with advice, or sometimes even loan of tools. Many of the larger one-make clubs also remanufacture rare
spares for your particular car, so for that reason alone it pays to join. The Ford Sidevalve Owners Club, which I've been a member of on a couple of occasions, is
a good example. If nothing else, it feels great to drive around in something that looks so completely different to the sea of bland faceless moderns which clutter our
roads up now. Driving a PA Cresta for example, with the in-car record player blasting out 'Peggy Sue' will always have more cred than any number of Vauxhall Novas fitted with oversize exhaust pipes
and undersize engines.
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Environmental
There are some sound environmental benefits to running an older car. Why is it that we are encouraged to recycle washing machines, water, clothes and so on yet
one of the biggest ways we can all cut down on manufacturing pollution is by forsaking the latest registration car on the drive, and instead re-using an older car that
someone wishes to sell on. It is well documented that a significant proportion of the pollution associated with every brand new car originates from its own manufacture. So
instead why not run a classic? To many people's eyes this is an excellent example of re-using something that is a little older, instead of automatically binning it
and replacing with a later model. Classics by and large run ok on unleaded just as much as moderns do. OK modern cars have catalytic converters but even these cats,
until they reach peak operating temperature, are pretty useless and are themselves made of scarce resources, being very vulnerable to damage into the bargain.
The economy of a classic, when viewed against a similarly sized modern, is also very comparable. Admittedly some classics require a few modifications before they can do a
significant mileage on unleaded, but yet again this is a classic example of modifying and adapting an existing resource (in this case an old car) to modern conditions,
instead of just junking it and replacing with new. Older cars lend themselves to maintenance in ways that no modern can hope to do. Most components in cars of the
1970s and earlier can usually be stripped down, the failed part located, and that one item replaced quite cheaply. Compare this to a new car with its sealed for life black
boxes which are destined for the bin and immediate replacement, upon showing a problem. Admittedly many many people are influenced into running the newest model
available in order to 'keep up with the Joneses' as it were, which is their decision, but equally someone planning to run a classic instead of a modern shouldn't be
automatically branded as 'environmentally unfriendly' without first giving due credit to my points above.
Now, have you decided what type of classic to go for ????
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