Quentin Willson
reflects on conversations held with Classic Cars readers
Indefatigable as ever on your behalf, editor Phil Bell and I spent four days at the London Classic Car Show, entertaining the crowds from our
Classic Cars magazine stand. A record turnout saw us besieged with questions from queues of passionate enthusiasts and we chatted faceto-face to hundreds. Our onstage double act discussed how the buoyant market means that clever buying can now help you run most classics for free; we showcased our future best buys; and we talked about the do’s and don’ts of winning at the old car game. Commendably, Phil was always at pains to tell the audience to buy classics only for love and never just for profit. A view I heartily agree with.
But between the shimmering ranks of cars there was a fascinating flow of fresh market intelligence. Having nearly 40,000 old-car fanciers in one place gives you an unprecedented snapshot of our hobby and Phil and I spoke to as many as we could, sucking up valuable views and experiences like long lengths of spaghetti. It seems lots of you have more than one classic and the phenomenon of the ‘micro collection’ is much more prevalent than we thought. There were also plenty of thirty-something readers telling us they’re buying moderns; AMG Mercs and M-series BMWS are much in favour, Japanese drift cars like Skylines were a talking point and I lost count of the questions from fast Ford RS devotees. We saw interest in US classics – Mustangs, Camaros and Cadillacs – and enthusiasm for Fifties and Sixties American pick-ups.
There were lots of amazing conversations like the bloke with Paul Mccartney’s Aston DB5, just coming to the end of a lengthy rebuild, and another guy with George Harrison’s Mercedes SEC. Encouragingly, the vast majority of people told me they’ve bought classics with their own money using draw-downs from pensions and cash from savings that hadn’t been earning interest – a good indicator that the market’s foundations (unlike the boom years of the Nineties) aren’t built on sand. There was only one horror story about borrowed loot from a chap who’d bought two Ferrari Daytonas for £750k apiece on finance and seen his highly leveraged investments tick down in value. The interest payments, he said, were killing him. There’s a moral there.
The overarching sentiment in the halls was of a solid, mature and sophisticated market with a very wide demographic and mainstream spread of interest. This definitely isn’t a beardy, crusty hobby any more, but one that’s become a glitzy lifestyle choice attracting people who just want to own a cool car – ancient or modern. And they weren’t all million-pound car collectors either – many just wanted to know our best buy for five grand. Phil and I were heartened after telling our audience how the first-generation Mercedes SLK makes a canny classic, only to hear the next day that one of the stand promotions girls had followed our advice. She’d looked on Gumtree and found a 51-plate 200 SLK with just 60k and total history for £2100. The joy in her eyes was dazzling. In those four days we saw the heart of our hobby and are delighted to report that it’s pumping strongly. And yes, Classic Cars readers, Phil and I will definitely be at the London Classic Car Show next year. Quentin Willson had a nine-year stint presenting the BBC’S Top Gear, has bought and sold countless cars and has cemented a reputation as everyone’s favourite motoring pundit.