Classic News
Believe it… the classic car scene is booming
Classic Motor Show news and more from the classic world.
‘There are good people looking after our interests’
In these chaotic and worrying times, it’s easy to be jaded. Social media often throws up a diet of bad news and panic to feed our sense of doom. So, this month I have limited my screen time and decided to live in the real world a bit more. Guess what? It’s OK out there.
I don’t advocate sticking your head in the sand, but a diet of 24hr news or Facetwitt fake news is bad for the soul. And that goes for classic car groups, too. If I were to run my classic life based on what I read online sometimes, I would have sold my classics years ago. The real world truth is that no-one is after us, there isn’t an anti-classic car conspiracy in government circles and there are plenty of good people looking after our interests. Business is still generally robust, young people are getting involved in the scene, prices aren’t tumbling and eastern European gangs are not scouring the streets looking for shiny classics to steal.
We have a fantastic hobby, we benefit from cheap insurance, tax exemption, low emission zone exemption for historic vehicles, abundant specialists, amazing clubs and a ton of fantastic shows to enjoy – plus excellent magazines to support it all! So the keyboard warriors and bedroom experts predicting the end, are thankfully a tad premature.
Yes, there are battles to be won… the most important being making sure that younger classics are recognised in some way throughout our hobby. We need them for the next generation. How to do this? Accentuate the positive, reassert our hobby as a green pursuit – it is the ultimate form of recycling after all – and restate, restate and restate again the value of what we do to UK plc… that’s £5.5 billion by the way.