Marketplace

Russ has been eagerly pursuing all the latest market trends.

No more than a couple of weeks removed from a significant birthday milestone, it may just be that I was feeling bit more mortal than usual. But something jumped out of an auction catalogue that I was casually perusing: the words ‘from a deceased estate’. There were so many, I totted them up and came to 14. That was not far off ten per cent of the cars on offer. More than I can ever remember.

It was a reminder that time is catching up with each and every one of us, and begged a meaning of life kind of question that you might like to share in asking yourself. Have I owned enough cars yet? Yes, I know that is, or at least ought to be, a rhetorical question. The minority who are thinking ‘Yes’ at this particular moment may well be heading for a subscription to Improve Your Coarse Fishing magazine rather than Practical Classics. The rest of us may be totting up how many we’ve had so far. A cup of tea and the entire back of an envelope later, I realized that I’d just passed the 50 mark, for cars, anyway. That left room for another list of the many cars that I still want to own and enjoy at some point. I’d better turn them over at a rate of more than one a year, by the look of it.

At the risk of sounding like a hackneyed T-shirt slogan, it’s quite hard to imagine that anyone ever lay on their death-bed thinking: ‘I wish I’d owned fewer cars’.

You don’t even have to worry about putting your affairs in any semblance of order and clearing out the storage well in advance of clog-popping time. Just one more, go on… from the above, it’s clear that all your estate has to do when the time comes is call a classic auction house and wait for the cheque.

Now, which car is next on the to-buy list?

‘Ask yourself – have I owned enough cars just yet?’

Russ Smith has been following the classic car market for more than two decades and contributes to Practical Classics, Classic Car Weekly and Classic Cars.