THROWING PETROL ON THE ‘CLASSIC’ CONTROVERSY
As I get older I’m increasingly annoyed by the misuse and repurposing of language. When did ‘absolutely’ start meaning ‘yes’? When did an ‘answerphone message’ turn into ‘voicemail’ (perhaps the stupidest word ever)? Don’t get me started on ‘he was like’ being used instead of ‘he said’...
While boring my long-suffering family with such complaints, it struck me that ‘classic’ has a new meaning too. To me, if something is classic then it’s of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind, or something of recognised and established value. Yet these days it’s muddled with ‘old’. We need to be careful – just because something is of increasing age, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a classic. It’s not the case for a Morris Ital, for example, which was a jalopy when new, never mind now. And it’s certainly not the case for many bikes.
While assessing whether a motorcycle is classic or not, we should open our eyes to more recent machinery. Honda’s Fireblade of 1992 can safely be labelled a classic, as can the class-defining 1997 Triumph T509 Speed Triple – yet I suspect you wouldn’t sell very many issues of CB if you put either on the cover, because they’re too new. Yet just the other day I was in the loft and stumbled across some old issues of CB from 1980. One contained a 1966 Velocette Thruxton, then just 14 years old; another had a test of a 1972 Harley racer – only eight years old yet qualifying as a classic.
I’d be really interested to hear what other readers think about the prospect of stand-out bikes from the 1980s, 1990s and maybe even 2000s appearing in Classic Bike...
TERRY ANDERSON, LEICESTER ON THE LAV