What is a classic car? It’s a question that I have been considering since listening to a pod cast where the two hosts discussed this subject. The pod cast being the intercooler. I have often talked about classic cars and the subject of future classics, without really thinking about what I’m talking about.
As a child in the 1980s and 1990s I would, with my dad, go to Classic Car Rallies. The cars there were mostly 1930s and ‘40s cars, or maybe they were the ones my dad, who was a child of the ‘30s and ‘40s wanted to look at and wanted me to see. For him and for me these were what we considered classic cars.
Moving into the present day, I find myself looking at cars that I remember as a child being and thinking about them as classics. This is where the line blurs for me, the difference between ‘old’ cars and ‘classic’ cars. Many cars on the road are old. I daily drive a 1993 Volvo 940, which in 2023 is certainly to be considered old, but not a classic (maybe). I am also fortunate to own a 1977 mini, which I do believe to be a classic car. The mini is a classic car because it is old but also because the mini has some pedigree in the automotive world, whether that be its clever design or its motorsport success. Either of those two make the mini a true classic car.
While my Volvo 940 holds huge sentimental value for me, and it’s proved to serve its purpose exceptionally well for 30 years, it is just an old car. When the Volvo 940 was launched it did nothing new and it didn’t do anything exceptionally well compared with what else was available on the market.
Sitting here writing this the Ford Sierra and Escort RS Cosworth come to mind, and whether they are classic cars. I don’t think they fit the remit, or even get close. While both cars were fast and powerful in their day and command an astronomical price tag now, they don’t have a legacy of motorsport wins nor were they the best at what they did, they had a reputation or image of being an everyman’s performance car which stuck with them for years, and maybe still does which is why they are popular old cars. But still only old cars.
Conversations between friends up and down the country on social media platforms say things like “that’s a future classic”. This is a phrase that gets used by people for almost any car, mostly for cars that hold some sort of prominence for them from a point in their lives gone by. The first brand new car their dad bought, or the car their best mate bought as a first car. Usually, the cars they hold in such esteem are nothing more exciting than a Nissan Micra or VW Golf.
I think in summary, for a car to be called a classic, has to be old and has to have had some prominence in either the world of motorsport or some kind of historical event.
Or maybe it just has to be loved by those that own the cars.