Nick Larkin
Nick ruminates on the modern way of buying a classic car.
Personally, I wouldn’t buy a pair of Y-fronts over t’internet in case they had horsehair in them. OK, even I’m not really that bad, but the massive recent developments in classic car buying online is still making my jaw drop.
Now please let me emphasise, I’m not criticising, just bemused. A few years ago, it would seem as impossible as Boris Johnson sending gunboats to Jersey in defence of British fishing rights, or Hartlepool electing a Conservative MP.
But hundreds of sane folk have bought a classic car from dealers over the past few months by ‘click and collect,’ ie switching on their computerised device and ordering without leaving their sofa or even cutting their toenails.
This may have been understandable during the worst of lockdown, but when classic showrooms were able to reopen from April, the thunder of hooves from people flooding in to view cars wasn’t heard, at least initially. Online sales continued to boom, however. I spoke to a number of dealers about this and even some of them were surprised. There is something quite reassuring about the situation, in that it shows just how much trust there is between buyers and sellers.
Obviously, the dealer has to describe the car accurately. Some have produced videos of their cars that would make Cecil B Demille collapse in a fit of raw envy. All questions are answered before the first tensioning of a low loader’s winch.
Then the transporter, ideally of Leyland or Foden manufacture, and its precious cargo, sweep majestically away from the dealership to the home of the car’s lucky new owner, who has been eagerly awaiting its arrival with a newly cleared out garage and celebratory afternoon tea. This is very much what seems to happen in most cases as dealers report very few returns.
This is the modern world
Trophy Cars, based at South Witham, Lincs, is Britain’s biggest MGF/TF specialist normally with 70 cars in stock. Managing director Kevin Marks told me that some 75 per cent of cars were now bought over the internet or by phone. ‘It’s certainly a new trend of buying. We’ve been sending cars everywhere – even one to the Shetland Isles – and not had one returned.’
But personally, even with a two-year-old Nissan Juke I’d rather meet my personal automotive choice, rub my fingers over it and compare it to others. I suppose there are advantages to clicking and collecting, ie not having to actually do anything apart from find the cash for your car. As well as avoiding a potentially long journey, you’re less likely to end up deciding between your original choice and something else that has caught your eye on the day, like when you were a fickle teenager at a school disco, ‘Hmm, the Hillman Husky or Ferrari 256 – damn!’
To be sure, to be sure
Two seemingly similar classics can drive very differently and are you sure you really are going to enjoy something that can be very slow and wobbly. And cold? I do to some degree have one ally.
We have to strongly emphasise that Danny O’keefe at Hampshire-based Bradley James is very happy to operate classic click and collect, but adds: ‘I would rather someone come to see a car and make sure they get what they really want. We make detailed videos of every car we sell, but we are talking about 60-year-old vehicles here!’
And let’s not get on to internet dating/marriage agencies. Seeing a classic in the metal is the equivalent of waiting for a nice lady/person to drop their handkerchief in front of you in the library reading room, rather than an unseen choice with glowing red eyes and huge, sharp teeth. And you wouldn’t want the classic equivalent of that!
‘I’d rather meet my own automotive choice’