How many miles per year do you drive in your classic(s)?
Discussion
Forgetting any laid-up vehicles or restoration projects, how many miles do you actually drive your classic car(s) each year?
Up until our first child came along I had typically been covering 1500 - 2000 miles per year in mine. This then fell to 1000 miles per year until kid #2 appeared, whereupon it has dropped further to about 500 miles. It's not a lot, is it, especially when you consider that my cars have always been taxed all year round?
So if you want to indulge your interest in classic cars to the full, my advice is to sell your children.
Up until our first child came along I had typically been covering 1500 - 2000 miles per year in mine. This then fell to 1000 miles per year until kid #2 appeared, whereupon it has dropped further to about 500 miles. It's not a lot, is it, especially when you consider that my cars have always been taxed all year round?
So if you want to indulge your interest in classic cars to the full, my advice is to sell your children.
I've only averaged about 2000 a year in my Griffith, Elise and now the alpina. As you say, with kids it's a question of opportunity (despite now having 4 seats for precisely that reason). What's really changed is the amount of time I no longer spend working on my car. Somehow that seems a real indulgence now.
I've only averaged about 2000 a year in my Griffith, Elise and now the alpina. As you say, with kids it's a question of opportunity (despite now having 4 seats for precisely that reason). What's really changed is the amount of time I no longer spend working on my car. Somehow that seems a real indulgence now.
April 2011-April 2012 I covered 902Kms!! since then a lot less as almost every country show or steam rally I was due to attend was cancelled due to the rain.It never ever gets used from end September to Easter,all tucked up in the dry.I did though charge the battery and start it up yesterday.
i have a few classics with exceptionally low mileage that i use no more than 500kms per year. i have others i use much more - up to 5,000kms per year. for me it mainly comes down to the weather. if i have r tyres on a car i am unlikely to use it in the wet. i also have some classics that do not have a/c and that effectively rules them out for use for about 7 months of the year in hk. it also comes down to where they are in the restoration cycle. if i buy a car as a driver and keep it in driver condition, i tend to use it more
LotusOmega375D said:
Up until our first child came along I had typically been covering 1500 - 2000 miles per year in mine. This then fell to 1000 miles per year until kid #2 appeared, whereupon it has dropped further to about 500 miles. It's not a lot, is it, especially when you consider that my cars have always been taxed all year round?
So if you want to indulge your interest in classic cars to the full, my advice is to sell your children.
That sounds very familiar.So if you want to indulge your interest in classic cars to the full, my advice is to sell your children.
I bought a 63 Guilia 1600 a couple of years before children, probably did 3,000 miles each year including two regularity rallies in January (it was a spider) but when the first child appeared in 2000 the Alfa Romeo went into hibernation at home, then storage, then sold. It was replace in 2002 by an 81 Renault 5 Turbo at the same time as the birth of our second child (I always referred to this as my mid life crisis moment) but was hardly used - mainly polished in fact - and has been in an extended rebuild ever since. Very curiously, with the children now 12 and 10 I have begun to dip my toe in the classic pool again - an 88 Shogun no less - and there are plans afoot for the Renault too.
So it seems there may be the time and the inclination again soon.
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