The PC Years Timeline
Forty years ago, PC hit the news stand for the very first time. A lot has happened since then…
A look back over the past four decades of Practical Classics.
When the first issue of Practical Classics slipped quietly onto newsagents’ shelves on and around April 15, 1980, nobody knew just how much an impact the 60p motoring magazine would have. Not only on the relatively fledgling classic car movement, but on the lives of countless people.
Without a doubt, the publication you are now holding has resulted in many classic cars being saved, restored and enjoyed. It’s encouraged lots of enthusiasts to take up the old car hobby, inspired countless friendships, employed hundreds of people and raised considerable sums for charity. Not forgetting the preservation of our transport heritage and all those other jolly things.
So how did Practical Classics come into being? The magazine was founded by three special men:
Paul Skilleter, Gordon Wright and Peter Hart. Having worked on Thoroughbred & Classic Cars during the mid-seventies, Paul had realised how much interest there was in restoration, and approached design studio owner Gordon, plus Peter Hart of Brooklands Books fame, about the possibility of a ‘hands-on’ magazine. All three put their houses on the line to launch the magazine.
A changing landscape…
Glance through the 100-page May 1980 issue and you’ll realise just how frighteningly different things were in those far off days when people would have thought the internet was some sort of fisherman’s trade organisation.
Rusty cars on every street, furry seat covers and more than the odd Fifties classic still in regular use with its original owners were the norm. The last
Morris Travellers were nine years old. We also still had British Leyland and even MG at Abingdon – just. You could chat to people who raced at Brooklands in the Thirties. Practical Classics magazine grew steadily throughout the Eighties.
Signs of the times
SUBiSCRIBEtured over 3000 cars. Things have changed so much since those golden days of stories being tapped out on typewriters and the cane regularly being administered for laughing in the office or spelling Wolseley wrong. PC would finish the decade owned by a big company, but 40 years later, it still sticks to the stated aim of its first issue:
‘We’re not going to be snobbish about defining a classic so we’ll be including any car that’s now being run for fun, from an XK120 Jaguar to a Ford Cortina GT, and from the Thirties to the Seventies.' Well, OK, we’ve changed that lower age limit to include cars from the Eighties and Nineties, plus selected Noughties classics – Practical Classics remains a broad church – but we're standing firm on everything else.
Don't panic!
Expensive Mini Cooper restoration