Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[baconsdozen]

Fiddling about under the rover yesterday I got to wondering how many hours I have spent welding,repairing,spraying,cleaning etc etc on the car. Then I wondered how many hours I have spent on a whole series of old cars,vans and motorcycles. I enjoy it,my wife thinks I'm mad,nobody in the family has much interest in the cars so that left the question Why?.
Is it an attempt to recapture a misspent youth? A sort of sympathy for something that like me is getting older and more tired? Was my mum frightened by a vintage car when carrying me? Does anyone know why some of us have what are almost love affairs with old cars?
_________________
Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).

[Bitumen Boy]

Well, the main factors for me (in no particular order) are that I prefer driving older cars to moderns, and often find them more comfortable. Plus I don't think I'll ever really trust anything that I don't understand how it works, and can't fix it when it goes wrong - the simpler something is the better it generally works

[Rootes75]

For me I have a love for old cars and lorries.

When I was younger my Grandparents ran a small countryside breakers yard containing cars from the 30's through to the 70's. It was all dispersed when I was about 12. I loved it and it rubbed off on me. The smells, the sounds and barns with hidden gems lurking inside, lovely.

My father on the other hand owned and drove lorries all his life and also has a keen taste for older lorries that he knew of or drove. I have many fond memories of setting off early in the morning in his old Guy Big J lorries during the summer holidays!

[kevin2306]

I cant explain why I do what I do with old cars / bikes but the pleasure and reward (not financial) I get is worth every hour.
I also like the escape into the man cave (garage)

kev

[Keith D]

I enjoy having to use skill to drive a manual car with a crash gearbox well. I enjoy the fact that they are hard work to drive successfully. I also find a typical car styling of the twenties, thirties and forties very, very appealing; I just love the look of them.
A modern car is so quiet and easy that any bl##dy fool can drive them well! (Most people anyway!)
Plus the fact that my efforts have transformed a rusty heap of rubbish into a very usable and interesting mode of transport.
I am slowing in my efforts at restoration nowadays, but I still love driving them!

I enjoy the nostalgia kick; my family and friends all reckon I was born about fifty years too late!

Keith

[peppiB]

I was 9 when my father bought his first car in my lifetime. It was 1938/9 Austin 10 Cambridge and I was fascinated the way he took it to bits, did repairs and then put the thing back together and it worked! Added to that I got to know a part of the family I had no idea existed - they had a working garage (Morris/Riley agents) and the smells and activities cemented the interest. here I could go down pits and see cars underneath without me having to crawl.

sadly my son has no interest in anything mechanical and thinks I am mad to get my hands dirty

My last modern car was a 2003 Skoda Octavia which I sold in 2006 so I have no idea what it is like to drive a new car nowadays.

[Billf]

I have to say. (I restored a Austin K2 Fire Tender and a A40 Somerset) a few years ago, and some day's i would have gladly set fire to them when things did not go as it should have. But overall i did enjoy restoring and driving them.

Still looking to but a classic car over here, but may have to win the lottery first.

[Rick]

Why? mmm that's a good question.

It isn't nostalgia, because my vehicles pre-date me so it's not nostalgia for the cars I grew up with. I think mainly I like the way the older stuff is put together, I like the styling, I like how they drive - despite being a handful sometimes - and I've half a chance of being able to understand how they work.

Driving something different to the norm is also a bonus. Over the years my interests have lurched further and further back in time, I still like the idea of something fairly straightforward to run from say the 1950s or 60s, but in the main it's pre-war where I'm at now.

RJ
_________________
Rick - Admin
Home:https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk
Videos:https://www.youtube.com/user/oldclassiccarRJ/videos
OCC & classic car merchandise (Austin, Ford ++):
https://www.redbubble.com/people/OldClassicCar/shop

[kevin2306]

[Ellis]

Quentin Willson, the motoring pundit and former car dealer once wrote to the effect that we don't use classic cars so much as to drive but rather to wear (as in clothes presumably).

He continued that classic car owners love the " approbation" (his word) and "warm feeling" using a classic car gives to others.
In plain English I presume that he meant attention seeking.

What a load of rubbish!

I like classics because they are different and represent individualism but NOT attention seeking.

Willson also wrote that in his opinion most classic car owners would not admit that they secretly regard their classic as "an off focus" fantasy and the experience of classic car ownership ever so slightly unfulfilling but would not dare admit so.

I disagree strongly!
_________________
Starting Handle Expert

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

[BigJohn]

I find modern cars to be just white goods, yes they are great on a motorway when I just pick D, get up to speed and click in cruise control. Comfortable, boring, A to B motoring. No fun at all, soulless.

Jump in my Mk1 Escort, it's noisy, rattley, tinny early 70's Ford build quality, and it's a hoot to drive, it has soul (although possibly a black one).

But maybe we are a bit show offish, my daily Skoda Yeti is fire engine red, my Escort is Modena Green , it's bright green, VERY BRIGHT GREEN. I asked for a little more yellow in the paint mix.

[goneps]

When I first became acquainted with the Morris thirty-odd years ago the most compelling impression when driving it (well away from the madding crowd) was of being transported back to the 1930s, when life was simpler and, I suspect, a lot better in many respects. I must have been around then in an earlier life!

The car demands competence and attention, to be driven the way it requires. Moderns make no such demands. Being a slow old thing it can thus be enjoyed to the full without risking fines and demerit points.

The other significant factor is that of patient skill, sometimes after lengthy research, rewarded when parts are repaired or restored to original working condition. You just can't beat the satisfaction of a job well done.

Richard

[goneps]

[Jason]

I always wanted an old car since the day I passed my test, the appeal to me at the time was the large headlights and radiator grill....more like a face than any modern car.....what we like to call, character and style.

because of this, when I found out the Alvis was going for free, there was no stopping me getting it.

then again after discussing this subject with the wife, she says I like rust and being covered in oil and dirt

you could call me a show off, but in my opinion, there's nothing better than driving an old car down the road with everyone staring and smiling.
_________________
"people with money buy a Rolls Royce, people with taste buy an Alvis".