Definition of classic cars

[Cartman]

I flick through, and occasionally buy, Practical Classics magazine and an item in the latest issue interested me, in that they were including cars from 25 years ago, ie 1993, in a list of possible future classics.

They made the interesting point that the magazine was launched in 1980 (I remember buying the first issue!) and that car shows were just getting going at that time. A 25 year old car in 1980 would be a 1955 car, and that would then have been considered an old car and of interest. Say you drove a 1955 Zephyr then it would have attracted attention, but the 25 year old equivalent now is a 1993 Mondeo, which is probably of very little interest. To me, it’s not much different to anything current and of zero interest. 

I tend to to have a cut off date for classics as sometime in the early 80s, when the 70s carry over cars finished, the next generation of cars, such as the Sierra for example, were bland and plastic and I do not consider them to be classics. 

Thoughts anyone?😁

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

I think its a generational thing, I was quite interested in the "old bangers" of the 70's during the mid to late 80's when a number of classic people thought they were trash, but it started to change in the mid 90's when mags like Practical Classics started to do 70's special, supplements and more mundane 70's cars started to be featured like Hillman Avengers and MK3 Cortinas once people realised they were vanishing off the roads.

I remember at a local show a couple of years back, a pensioner muttering that a 1974 Aston Martin at the show, wasn't really a classic - to him maybe not! When my dad took me to the Bromley Pageant in 1988, he didn't think to much to Hillman Hunters and other turn of the decade cars (about 1969/70) although the pre 1965 brought back memories for him as he drove a few when they were new. He preferred to look at "proper classics" like pre war and pre 1960 upmarket cars. He was born in 1937, so classics to him were something built before he was born - but anything born before I was born in '71 would be interesting to me, along with the 70's cars as I fondly remember seeing them in the showrooms, and travelling in friends parents cars when they were up to date cars at the time. (There was definitely something appealing about the look and the interiors of 70's Fords.........)

I now do a double take to some 80's everyday cars if I see any at a show, when I didn't do before. That includes the once common MK2 Vauxhall Cavalier (1981-88) - a huge seller in its day, once littering the motorways with sales reps driving them and a car that for a short while stole sales from Ford with ex Cortina owners and company buyers going over to them as it looked less like a weird jellymould than the MK1 Sierra did on its launch. They did make a booted saloon from the start. How many do you see now?

I agree 90's cars don't get my juices flowing as much apart from the odd exception but some of that decades cars are vanishing. I was following an M reg big Lexus tonight on the way home and I realised that car's 23 years old now! When I started getting interested in classics in the late 80's that would have been like a mid 60's car then, (similar sized car then would have been an Austin Westminster or Wolseley 6/110) which would have been pretty rare by then.

[Sam Tyler]

Great question Carty!

In my opinion it is very difficult to truly categorise what constitutes a "Classic" car and I think Gerry explains well that it is a generational thing but I think there is more to it than that. I think we have to appreciate that every decade will have had cars that could be worthy of being considered as a classic. Insurance companies generally allow anything over 15 years old (sometimes younger) to be considered for classic car insurance which I completely agree with since a classic cannot be clearly pigeon-holed or defined.

As Gerry pointed out, what his father considered a classic and what Gerry himself are two completely different things - the old story of one man's meat being another man's poison which goes to explain why you wouldn't consider a Mondeo to be worthy of being deemed a classic.

If we look into the 90's we could start to consider cars that were built in lower numbers, cars like the VW Corrado VR6, Sierra RS Cosworth 4x4, Subaru Impreza WRX, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. These were all cars based on the 'ordinary' models but uprated for near-competition performance. Then there were the performance cars such as the Dodge Viper, yet another iteration of the Porsche 911, the Honda NSX.

All these in my opinion are worthy of being considered classic cars but picking on the Impreza for example, if we think the WRX is a classic then why not the bottom of the range vanilla version too in the same way that we'd consider a Granada L just as much a classic as a Granada 2.8i Ghia X.

As I said at the start, it is difficult to clearly define but classic cars can't have a set end-date to be eligible and all generations will be able to appreciate cars from 'their' past.

Sam.

[Cartman]

I suppose it is a generational thing, yes. I got interested in cars when I started learning to drive, in the mid 70s and, at that time, you did still see some 50s cars still in regular use, together with loads from the 60s, so I noticed those first, but I also liked what were then current. The styles of the cars seemed to be quite different over a fairly short period too, taking Ford for example, a Ford 100E looked quite different to a 105E Anglia, which in turn was different to a mark 1 Escort, all three could be seen then in good numbers.

This morning I saw a bloke park up in an 02 plate VW of some sort, which didn’t register as being 16 years old, in 1980 that would have been a 64 car which would stand out a bit.

The later ones seemed to be just variations on the same basic shape. 

Interesting that, like music, we all have our preferences. 

[Dirty Epic]

Suppose in essence a 25 year old Mondeo is a classic now and along with many of it's competitor cars you don't see many of them on the roads today. Suppose the same was the case for a mk3 Cortina in 1993 too.  Also these are the era a lot of these cars got heavily modified and messed around with so a untouched preserved example of cars from the late 80's/90's is very, very rare to find indeed.

For me they do deserve to be persevered maybe not to the numbers of the classic 70's Fords etc. but they do have a place in the classic scene.

[Cartman]

Agreed, a 90s Mondeo is not my bag at all, but if someone out there likes them and wants to preserve one, then more power to them!

[Batgirl]

Good topic. Coincidentally my brother was asking me about club plates for his Toyota ute. It's just over 25 years old.
It seems odd that it is suddenly classed as a 'classic'.

I think many modern cars today may not even last 25 years. Do the manufacturers make them to last that long?
Who buys a new economically priced car and expect it to last 25 years?
Some are lucky to last five years and a lot of people like to replace their cars (if leasing) every two years or so.

[Del Boy]

Its in the eye of the beholder for sure. I like selected 50s cars but in the main I find some very basic and odd and as was said earlier they were fairly rare on the roads in the late 70s.
The period I love is the 60s and 70s cars even though these were only prevalent on the roads for the first ten years of my life.
The 80s cars don't really hold too much interest either although there is some good stuff designed in that decade .
I can't believe that Mk3 Escort's are so well loved these days
 
I really fail to see how one of the ugliest most overrated cars ever made the Mk1 Mondeo can ever evoke classic status.
They were and still are ugly and crap. Those things have not aged well at all, If I see one I am lucky not to fetch up my dinner    

Generally speaking I think its two things that define a classic. As cars become rarities on the road the interest builds in said model and the second factor in this would be the way it looked often very different to whats currently available. Over the years the interiors were far more interesting than the plastic cockpits of a modern example but its different now. Is the bland plastic (inside and out) Mondeo any different from  the current Mondeo or a 15 plate Dacia Duster? No not really  (And the Dacia would be more reliable )

[Cartman]

Pretty much 100% agree with Del on this, some 50s cars were nice, I particularly like the mark 2 Consul/Zephyr/Zodiac which was made from 1956-62, but my favourites are the 60s and 70s ones. To my mind, from the 80s onwards cars started to get very plasticky and the large areas of grey plastic in cars like the mark3 Escorts and others, looked dull when new, and aged even worse.

Another very ugly car from that era I have always thought of as crap were the various types which followed on from the Mark 2 Granada 

[Villain]

The time will undoubtedly come when the wonderful classics of the '60s and '70s will be seen as 'vintage cars', but for me this period has by far the most innovative, recognisable and beautifully styled vehicles, some more so than others, but overall the design and thought that went into them stands way above anything from the '80s onwards. I'm not just talking about British cars either, classics we're all familiar with like the Triumph Stag, Rover P6, MGB, E-Type and Mk2 Jag are fabulous things, but take a look at the Alfa Romeos and Lancias of the same period, even certain models of Fiat, Citroen and Peugeot which were styled by real artists like Bertone, Pininfarina, Vignale etc - they've all stood the test of time.

Seeing classics being used on the road today can often be quite startling - a few weeks ago I overtook a '67 Austin Cambridge on the A5 in the middle of the night, it looked amazing in two tone green, laden with chrome with the soft yellow glow of its Lucas headlights giving off a warm and cosy vibe from the good old days of pounds, shillings and pence and Simon Templar doing battle with dodgy looking characters in glorious black and white on the telly. It's this instant 'hit' of nostalgia which makes them classics. One of my neighbours has a mid '50s Ford Pop in 'National Health beige', every time he drives past my house the sound of his pea shooter exhaust takes me back to being a nipper.


Villain