The political and economic
turmoil that continues to ripple out from the seemingly never- ending Brexit negotiations is now edging ever closer to the classic car fraternity, with some industry pundits predicting the softening of prices for highvalue classics. With prices for ‘blue chip’ cars, such as the ex-John Surtees 1957 BMW 507 Roadster that sold recently for £4m, that’s something that probably won’t affect the majority of us unless we win the lottery but the good news is that prices for popular classics are continuing to hold up. That’s of course as long as expectations remain realistic and it will be interesting to see how the post- Brexit market eventually settle down with regards popular classic prices once we’re out of the EU.
Talking about Brexit, which almost every news bulletin is at the moment, I was chatting to a lawyer friend recently who was saying how much motoring legislation is being held up by the Brixit negotiations. Changes to the law proposed over twelve months ago include a new graduated driving licence scheme. A trail was proposed to start in Northern Ireland this year where ‘R’ plates (‘P’ in the UK) would become compulsory. New drivers would also be subject to a 45mph speed limit and the number of passengers novice drivers under the age of 24 could carry would be strictly limited.
Another change was one enforcing the law regarding ignoring the red ‘X’ displayed over smart motorway lanes. Although it’s already an offence to ignore these signs, the cameras that should be enforcing the regulations still haven’t been given type approval. So this means enforcement and the issuing of any automatic fines isn’t happened at the moment and it’s down to the police patrols to stop and report any offenders.
Driving too close to cyclists is a new law that’s supposed to come in to affect in March and despite loads of media coverage there’s no sign of any legal provision yet. Not a delay but another ‘biggie’ from my pal’s point of view is that later this year rule changes will mean that a motoring case could be dealt with by any court in the country under single justice procedure rules – so be prepared to travel if you get caught doing something illegal behind the wheel!
UNEXPECTED REPAIRS
One of the downsides of classic car ownership is when a simple fix turns into an expensive nightmare and that’s exactly what happened when our project Saab 900 was booked in to have what looked like a small spot of corrosion sorted out on one of the front chassis legs. This job took far longer than we expected, as most of the front suspension had to be removed to make a proper repair. We describe the job in part three of Project Saab 900 along with all the other work we’ve done to the car this month.
Unfortunately, gremlins got into the printing process in last month’s Saab feature and published two page 65s in some issues. We’ve put the full feature online at www. classicworld.co.uk and apologise for any inconvenience.