Commuter Classic

[Phil P]

There's only one classic worth buying, a Willys MB jeep. You can get every part for it from a wheel nut to a body tub. A full winter kit makes it nice and cosey and then take all the canvas off for the long hot summer days. It will go anywhere and always turns heads. It will do 60MPH, feels like 100, and is easy to maintain. Remember it was designed for GI's to look after. 20MPG plus. The 'vibromassage' through the seats will keep your joints supple! Average price for a nice one now £14,000 and climbing by the day. In 30 years if the value goes up at the current rate (£1200-00 per annum) that will mean you will have a jeep worth £60,000 and possibly more. Could even hit £100,000! Whats a Mowog Beetle going to be worth in 2033 nothing like that I bet if they last that long. Plus as we get sucked further into the EC it's aleady left hand drive. I've got two and looking round for another. A better investment than trusting your money to a prat in red braces who will pay himself millions as a bonus for losing it and then telling you to tighten your belt! That's why they wear braces they don't have to tighten their belts!

You KNOW it makes sense.

Phil

[JPB]

Erm, today's the second of April..... But there's nowt wrong with a little passion, however misplaced it may be.

[Grumpy Northener]

Whilst appreciating the points made by Phil P, the vast majority of us on here own our classics for a wide range of reasons - some of us like comfort / speed / the roar of a V8 / shiny paint / looks / history / family friendly / size / convertible / quirky etc - I think very, very few of us on this forum own a classic car for financial gain - whilst none of us would have any objections to our classics appreciating in value a little it is the fun / smile on the face factor that we all appreciate

[Phil P]

If appreciating value isn't the reason for owning a classic why do folks ask such crazy prices for some of them? Ferraris selling for millions. I'd be frightened to take it out in case some kid tearing round in a Vauxhall Astra ran into it. If one of these prats ran into my vehicle it would be a fatality. I would bloody kill him!!

It would be nice to think classic cars will still be allowed to be used in 30 years. Sadly I think not. We are celebrating pre '74 cars being tax exempt. No MoT's on pre 1960 vehicles. One day all the other EC countries will get together and we get taken to a European court and that will be that. It won't matter what colour party is in Government in the UK. Fuel will be formulated so that nothing other than a brand new car designed to run it will be on the road. We're almost at that point now. Modifications to stop you changing your classic to run on the new fuel will be outlawed. A similar law almost got forced on us a few months ago. Classic vehicles will a thing of the past. So keep your Practical Classic or Classic Car Weekly's because that will be the only reminder. Oh yes learn French or German because they will be running the deal!!

You could of course by a tank and fight back. We've beaten Johnny Foriegner a couple of times before. Now I know where there is a very nice one. It's live and ready to go, low mileage and can be delivered.

Phil

[bnicho]

I've been running a 74 Beetle daily for three years now. The only breakdowns have been:

- A split shifter bush (replacement non-gen chinese crap!) which was bodgied up with an eraser to get me home.
- The clutch slipping (replaced by me in about two hours for a cost of $100AU).
- A wire to the coil breaking off at the terminal. Five minutes to fix.

Any parts I have needed I can get within 24 hours and everything is simple to work on. The car cost me $2500AU and sailed through the local equivalent of an MOT with nothing more than a light bulb and a brake adjust.

The car has 539,000 km on it now. The engine is original, but I'd bet it's been rebuilt at least once. The gearbox is starting to get tired though.

The rust is starting to take hold now though, so I will need to do something about that soon.

Cheers,
Brett.

[tractorman]

It's actually quite a deep question when you think about it. I don't agree with Phil's "only reason to own a classic is because they appreciate in value" bit - most classics will probably only keep up with inflation and, if used daily, the extra servicing costs compared to some moderns will negate any financial advantage. You may argue, but when you think of the economy figures for some modern cars (and the cost of RFL), a daily commute can eat a lot of cash very quickly! Certainly, my tractors have cost more to buy and bring to working order than I would ever get if I sold them and a modern with twice the power costs a lot less to run per acre/hour it works.

That aside, Phil makes a good point about fuel availability. As fossil fuels are disappearing, there would have to be a synthetic version produced. If electric vehicles (or some other form of energy comes along that is actually practical) take over, there won't be the need to produce billions of gallons of synthetic petrol or diesel and, if there isn't a big market, the fuel will either be horrifically expensive or not produced at all. There is a "precedent" in that most early tractors in the UK were petrol-powered until just after the war, when the government took the "agricultural rebate" (not the official term!) away. Tractors then used duty-free "Vaprorising Oil" (usually known as TVO or paraffin). Diesels came to the fore in the fifties and now you can't buy ready-made VO at all.

So the classic that OP buys needs to last 30+ years, have excellent spares availability and be able to use fuel that will still be available in the future. I fear the only answer is something like the Nissan Leaf, which could be converted to whatever electrical storage/production device they make in the future (electricity will still be electricity in 30 years time).

Perhaps a current classic isn't the answer - apart from it being 50+ years old in 30 years' time and will have gone through a few "obsolete" (read that as expensive) parts by then! A good modern will be a classic in thirty years, so perhaps something around the ten-year old mark would do the job.

I'm beginning to think I'm lucky: I'm very near 60 now. I don't think I could face 30 years of driving an 80's car unless it had luxuries like air-con, ABS and various other things that make driving a modern relatively safe and enjoyable. While I like "playing with" my (depreciating) classic tractors, I wouldn't want to do drive them every day, nor would I like to be writing this with a "classic" Sinclair Spectrum!

[TerryG]

You will always be able to get fuel for an internal combustion engine. The legality may be in question but petrol engines run perfectly well on Hydrogen and Diesels run on veg oil with a few tweaks. As you make hydrogen with water and electricity we are not likley to run out of either any time soon and you grow veg oil so that will always be about although the cost will probably rise pretty quickly if we start running out of oil but that isn't going to happen in any of our lifetimes so go out and enjoy it

[Phil P]

Oh come on Tractorman, nearly 60 I'm probably 10 years older and the joy of driving something with no luxuries is great. I sometimes get the chance to crew a friends 1920 Avelling Porter steam roller and that is fantastic. It gives your knee joints a bit of 'excercise'. 6 hours continuosly running, except to stop by a hydrant and fill up with water, is great. When it rains the top half of you is wet and bottom half is roasted! What more can you sk for.

A Stanley Steamer is a good investment. There will always be fuel available even it's only burning EC Directives!

Phil

[Richard Moss]

Perhaps a current classic isn't the answer - apart from it being 50+ years old in 30 years' time and will have gone through a few "obsolete" (read that as expensive) parts by then! A good modern will be a classic in thirty years, so perhaps something around the ten-year old mark would do the job!

I wouldn't like to be trying to maintain a modern cars electrics in 30 years time. At least a Morris Oxford electrical system could be rebuilt overnight by a twelve year old kid

[hobby]

True but when you can pick up a 10 year old car for under a grand which will do the mileage the OP is talking of easily enough and replace it every 6/7 years I reckon it would be cheaper than trying to keep a classic on the road... I still feel that 20k a year for 30 years is too much to ask of an old car, I feel it would be cheaper to run a 10 yr old into the ground and replace every few years would be cheaper and less hassle.