MUSEUM FOR BRITISH CARS ON THE BRINK
The Car Years presenter Alex Riley joins calls for ambitious new attraction celebrating Britain’s classics to be put back on track
Alex Riley, the presenter of The Car Years and The Classic Car Show, has joined motoring fans from across the UK in appealing for a proposed new museum with 100 British classics to be saved from being scrapped.
The CCW contributor said that he believed the proposed Great British Car Journey attraction, set to open in Derbyshire this April, would have offered something ‘genuinely new and exciting’ for motoring enthusiasts, but in the past week the team behind the 100-car museum have said that the scheme is unlikely to proceed.
Alex said: ‘It sounded like a great idea – and I still hope someone can step in and rescue it.’
The future mass availability of petrol and diesel for classics has been put into doubt by the announcement by Grant Shapps that new petrol-powered cars could be banned by 2032. In a surprise move, the Transport Secretary said the ban on the sale of new internal combustion powered cars could be only 12 years away. This follows the Prime Minister’s announcement on 4 February that the government would bring forward the existing 2040 ban to 2035. The ban will not place any restrictions on the use of older cars – but independent experts have said that the move to zeroemissions vehicles could lead to greatly reduced availability of petrol and diesel, with the possibility of increased prices. The Department for Transport is now encouraging classic fans to share their views on whether a subsequent winding down of filling stations will affect their cars, with a public consultation that will close on Friday 29 May due to be published on their website ‘in due course’. Wayne Scott, communications director of the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) said: ‘It is highly likely that there will still be internal combustion engine (ICE) and hybrid vehicles on the roads for many years after 2035. These vehicles are likely to continue the demand and supply for petrol and diesel. Longer term, we need to monitor the effect that this all has on fuel supply and price due to changing demands. We will also continue to argue to ensure that historic vehicle exemptions remain on a rolling basis.’ East Yorkshire MP and Chair of the All-Party Historic Vehicles Group, Sir Greg Knight, was unbothered by the news. ‘As most new cars are designed to be used for a decade or more, I do not foresee the market for the sale of petrol and diesel tapering off until at least the middle of this century,’ he said. However, a 2019 independent report by industry analyst KPMG estimated that 20 per cent of cars in the UK would be electric by 2030. As the UK’s fleet of cars renews at an average rate of six per cent a year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a 2032 ban on fossil-fuel-powered cars would see nearly 70 per cent of the UK’s cars go electric by 2040, drastically reducing the demand for petrol and diesel filling stations.