CLASSICS O F TOMORROW
Last month, we asked you, the readers of New Zealand Classic Car, to pick your own version of a modern classic car. The choices were interesting: everything from the almostobvious picks — the Ferrari 480 as an example — to cars we may not think of as today’s classics but that may well become important classics in the future. The Nissan Leaf and the Tesla are both in that category, and, according to you, they get there on two counts. They are both examples of early mass-produced electric cars and, depending on which way electric vehicles (EVS) go in the future, they could either become complete orphans — as interesting as a vintage steampowered car is today — or be forerunners of the type of car everyone is driving.
Readers also tried to pick what will become a modern version of the Morris Minor, and that is not easily done. Maybe an early version of the current BMW Mini will one day fit that bill, but it is hard to imagine.
Today’s cars are relatively complicated, even in their base models. This may well be a stumbling block when it comes to preservation and restoration in the future. Today, a machinist can remake or restore old and worn metal parts for almost any car, but when we begin to look at the electronic componentry — for example, the ignition or engine-management system — the whole idea of restoring those parts in the future suddenly becomes more daunting. It is easy to imagine that those parts might become extremely difficult to remake or restore. Then again, maybe by then one will simply be able to ‘print’ the missing bits.
What is clear, though, is that some of the selection of cars available today will become classics. Is there an Alfa today that will become the Alfa Junior of 2068? If you’re certain you know which model, go and buy it now and put it away for your grandchildren.
If we look only a short distance into the past, we can see a time when so many mid-range British sports cars were not so desirable but were certainly affordable. In that group of cars produced from the 1950s through until the ’80s, there are many that have now entered the classic car cohort. Even the cheapest of the sports cars from those years are now desirable. For example, who today can deny the charm of a ‘Bugeye’ Sprite or the curvaceous beauty of a Healey 100? Yet it doesn’t seem that long ago that cars such as those were languishing in the For Sale columns of one’s local newspaper.
So, back to that vexatious subject of picking some contenders from today’s parking lot. We have ventured in this issue to name the Rover 3500 as something of a modern-day classic, and we look at why that is. Other cars, such as the Mcrae F5000 featured, are also classics but not something that many people can buy — only 14 of those were ever built. The idea is to choose something from the commonly available vehicles. It seems that the bigger the choice, the harder it is to pick a winner. That brings us back to the grass roots of this magazine. So many cars are important to us as Kiwis, not because of their superb engineering, stylish looks, or sporting nature. Rather, it’s because of where they took us, what we did when we got there, and who we did it with. For many of us, our classics are the names etched into Kiwiana; that is why they are our classics.