Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

... since you first got interested in older vehicles?

What changes have you seen over time, good, bad or indifferent?

RJ
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[Ellis]

Gone are the days when you would spend hours on the 'phone looking for parts when now, in most cases, everything can be found by using a computer keyboard. And paying for them is simpler and more secure.

Ebay has, sadly, done much to lead to the decline of autojumbles. There were only two here in North Wales in the 1990s and both have closed. I used to find it satisfying to have a good rummage and enjoy physically finding something I needed, or didn't, but bought anyway.
Car boot sales are not as enjoyable being non specific.

I have noticed the attitude of young people towards classic cars has changed in the last ten years or so. Many are only interested in knowing the money value of your car and not it's individuality or engineering worth. Others tend to be dismissive having eyes only for the most recent iphone or similar.
I may be wrong.
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Starting Handle Expert

1964 Jaguar Mark 2 3.4 litre
1962 Land Rover Series 2a 88"
2002 BMW M3 E46 Cabriolet

[mikeC]

[Keith D]

I can remember back in about 1970 turning my nose up at a 1931 Austin Limousine, an ex-mayoral car in suburban Melbourne for $60 because the roof was leaking badly and also because it wasn't vintage!

In those days we expected an old car to be actually usable and running for our money!

Yes! Times have certainly changed. In later years my Chrysler was a wreck and my Austin Seven I bought as a collection of bits in boxes!

In Western Australia we enjoy an annual Easter Rally in Albany, a town on the south coast about 250 miles from Perth. I first attended this rally in about 1980 in my 1950 Austin A40. I was one of a handful of post 1930 cars. All the others were vintage or veteran. Nowadays there are perhaps three or four vintage cars, no veteran, and everything else is much newer. Seventies, eighties and even into the early nineties. This is progress, but given that I am now an old f##t, I find the rally has lost it's charm. A 1980's car is not old to me!

Keith

[Dipster]

For me it is the fact that good tools are readily available at reasonable prices. As my Dad used to tell me, and I can only endorse, you can do everything better and easier with the right tool.

I think of welding equipment in particular. When I was a youngster in the garage it was easy to buy gas welding kit at a fair price but the gas was a major headache. Not many suppliers to choose from (the big one being British Oxygen) and you had to have a contract. And that was not too easy either as the supplier would only drop his cylinders off at reputable premises, and at a price! All understandable but a pain. Arc welding kit was quite cumbersome and pricey. Now you can buy often excellent kit so easily and very keenly priced.

Even vehicle lifts are not beyond serious amateurs now. There are so many other items too that have made quite complex projects possible.

[baconsdozen]

Ebay has killed off lots of things beside autojumbles. It has also been responsible for the huge amount of cheap junk available,and at the other extreme the ludicrous prices asked for NOS parts and gaudy,over restored cars.
For me the hobby has been spoilt by the cheque book registrations and the snobbery. Car shows have turned into places to brag about how much money you've spent and new faces turning up at them or many car clubs are about as welcome as a fart in an astronauts suit.
I used to admire the owners who spend much time and effort making or altering parts and tackling intensive work outside in all weathers usually with vehicles that some other owners would consider beneath them.
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Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).

[norustplease]

Definitely a fall off in the numbers of pre-war cars in shows, meetings and indeed being featured in magazines as restoration projects. There is an increased emphasis on postwar stuff, 60's onwards.
I suppose that inevitably the supply of cars for restoration must dwindle as the years go by, and I also suspect that the inflation in values in recent years and 'investment' buying has pushed a lot of older cars off the road into storage in the last few years, and has also made them unaffordable to the majority of would be owners. This is a shame and I suspect that a lot of cars are now considered to be too valuable to be committed to the road on a regular basis. On the upside, of course, increased value makes it more economically worthwhile preserving a lot of day to day cars that would at one time have been left to dissolve into rust in a scrapyard.
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1953 Citroen Traction
1964 Volvo PV544
1957 Austin A55 Mk 1
Boring Tucson SUV

[Rootes75]

I agree, a definite reduction in pre-war cars at shows and runs these days. When I first got interested in classic cars etc 20 odd years back the shows we went to had some really lovely pre-war cars and in good numbers too. A lot of the shows we go to now allow in cars up to the 80's and plenty of muscle cars etc.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

[MikeEdwards]

[baconsdozen]

I've bought some handy spares and other bits from car boots. Old style auctions are sometimes good too,especially the smaller country type ones where house contents and the like are cleared.
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Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).

[Ashley]

Back in the sixties, parts for old cars were virtually unobtainable. I had to search the back of old garages for tyres for my MG and scrapyards for bits to fix it. But then if I wanted anything for my horribly unreliable A40 Farina MK 1 I had to queue for most of a Saturday morning in a BMC spares dept.

Now almost everything is available.

The trouble with pre war cars is that the ordinary ones were built when people were much less well off than now. They were slow, basic, utilitarian and mostly unpleasant to drive. This especially in the sixties when they were pretty knackered. The Americans taught us a great deal during WW2 and afterwards we made some really excellent cars. I'm not surprised people prefer them. They look much nicer too IMO.

[PAUL BEAUMONT]

For the past 5+ years I have been involved with our club's spare parts scheme and I go along with a lot of what has been said. One trend that we see is fewer and fewer DIYers. We ship more and more stuff to Restoration Specialists etc. Where once we would ship just a clutch say, now we get asked for a random selection of unassociated parts, as the garage is asked to carry out a number of jobs while the vehicle is on the premises.

[Dipster]

[Ashley]

[baconsdozen]

You must have been unlucky with your suppliers. In Norwich I traded with a number of old fashioned Motor and Engineering factors. I'd often spend time comparing old parts lists and catalogues, picking the brains of one of the older storemen or opening dusty old boxes to find parts to fit some new 'project'. I'd spend hours crawling about in scrapyards too,now everything is so clinical and frankly,boring.
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Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).