Welcome to the section of the magazine that looks at modern classics, future classics and cars of general interest from the 1990s and 2000s.

I am always scanning cars for sale ads on my phone, more out of curiosity than anything else to be honest. That is why I was alarmed to read that eight out of ten cars for sale on Facebook’s trading platform Marketplace are a scam, according to research by high street bank Santander. Their shock findings showed that in excess of 100,000 fake adverts are on the site at any one time, with their team uncovering 25 fake seller accounts and 4000 false posts. And true enough, this tallies with the high number of posts I see on the social media groups I belong to warning other members off a particular seller.

Of course, the biggest indicator of fraud is nearly always price, with scam vehicles likely to be advertised at significantly less than their true market value in order to hook in buyers hopeful of having spotted a bargain. However, this can be more tricky to spot with modern classics, so in my book the best way to avoid being ripped off is to see a car in the metal, take a test drive and talk turkey over price afterwards if you like what you see, and only once you’ve done the necessary history checks. If you go to see a car, you’ll not only know that it exists, but can usually tell if the seller is genuine or not – scammers will be elusive, nervous and pushy about paying money up front to ‘secure’ the deal. Go by your gut instinct and be prepared to walk away if you think anything’s at all fishy. However, don’t let all this put you off bagging a future classic. There are still a lot of decent vendors out there wanting their vehicles to go to a good owner and the market is awash with intriguing cars waiting to be snapped up for very little money.