Feh. Do I sell all the classics and just buy a modern?

[Christmassss]

Sell one of them, keep two, replace that one with something more modern.

Job done

[Discombobulate]

Glasgowrob said:

my kids are the same,

daughter has a smattering of interest but that only extends as far as what badge is on the front, much cooler to be picked up in the jag than the Ford apparently.

sad state of affairs considering both Mum,Dad and Grandad are all massive petrolheads.

Same here. My daughters' favourite car of mine is a 2CV. They appreciate cars, but not the image. According to them Porsches - except the very oldest ( I had a 2.2s which they loved) - make people look like they are "trying too hard". And there is nowt funnier to my daughters (in their late twenties) than seeing someone (of any age) who thinks their car makes them look cool, when it does the exact opposite. They may have a point...

Edited by Discombobulate on Friday 6th September 15:36

[Cheib]

OP...you say you live in North London. I did until four years ago and moved out of North London. I live about 10 miles north of the M25. Every time I drive into London (which is probably about once every three months) I just find it tiresome and even in those four years driving has for worse (20 mph zones) and traffic worse....and I tended to drive a lot in London. I think it's very hard to enjoy the kind of cars you have in London...it's probably a half hour drive from where you live to get to somewhere where you can start to enjoy those cars....and that first half hour they're worse than your family car for the drive out! Currently own five cars...think if I lived in London it would be two with nothing "fun"....just too painful/expensive.

[964Cup]

Penguinracer said:

It's odd how if you fly a light aircraft or run large motorboat no one seems to care about the fuel & emissions - probably because the hand-wringing liberal complainers don't often darken the door of an FBO/aero club or marina/yacht club.

Sell the 964's & get yourself a Pitts for some aero action or a nice Bonanza A36 to cart the family around Europe.

Whether or not I sell the cars, this has been a thought for some time. We have places in France and Italy; it would be nice to be able to visit them more often. It's quite a time (and money) investment to get to that point, though - I'd not be happy flying the family around unless my wife and I were both qualified, and at least one of us would need IFR. Looks like a half-decent twin (Beech Baron, for instance) is about half a bar USD (I'd not be happy crossing the Alps in a single-engined plane); I imagine the usual 10% of the acquisition cost PA to run rule applies. About £50k to get to PPL(A)+NR+MEP+MEIR, so say £75k total if only one of us goes all the way. Might be able to recover some of the ownership costs by renting the plane out, I suppose. Still, it's the thick end of £600k and two years done properly. Can't say I'm not tempted.

The carbon footprint comparison is interesting: for a family of four getting to (say) Milan - comparing commercial flights, a twin-piston light plane and driving in a typical 30mpg ICE car:

950km by plane gives 1.2 tons of corrected footprint from commercial; about 0.75 tons by Beech Baron G58; 1300km by car gives about 0.3 tons at 30mpg (which is what we get from our XC90 T8). So commercial is a bit less than twice light aviation which is in turn a bit more than twice automotive (not accounting for the Shuttle, and considering only fuel emissions, not construction/eventual disposal etc). The light plane would be comfortably the quickest door-to-door, once you allow for all the arsing about at airports.

[G-996]

I contrast to some of the comments, my 12 and 13 year old sons are obsessed with cars. Properly obsessed. I suspect that I may be partially to blame...
My view is that in 20 - 40 years time ICE cars will become like horse are today. I.e. not really used for transport any more, but enjoyed as a hobby by petrolheads fortunate enough to be able to afford to run them.

[IMI A]

G-996 said:

I contrast to some of the comments, my 12 and 13 year old sons are obsessed with cars. Properly obsessed. I suspect that I may be partially to blame...
My view is that in 20 - 40 years time ICE cars will become like horse are today. I.e. not really used for transport any more, but enjoyed as a hobby by petrolheads fortunate enough to be able to afford to run them.

+1

7 year old girl still scolds me for selling red 964! 13 yr old boy won't let me sell 997 turbo!

OP I find classics are far more fun if you do not buy money pits. There's amazing examples out there and they cost a fair bit less medium term than projects.

[Mikebentley]

964Cup said:

Penguinracer said:

It's odd how if you fly a light aircraft or run large motorboat no one seems to care about the fuel & emissions - probably because the hand-wringing liberal complainers don't often darken the door of an FBO/aero club or marina/yacht club.

Sell the 964's & get yourself a Pitts for some aero action or a nice Bonanza A36 to cart the family around Europe.

Whether or not I sell the cars, this has been a thought for some time. We have places in France and Italy; it would be nice to be able to visit them more often. It's quite a time (and money) investment to get to that point, though - I'd not be happy flying the family around unless my wife and I were both qualified, and at least one of us would need IFR. Looks like a half-decent twin (Beech Baron, for instance) is about half a bar USD (I'd not be happy crossing the Alps in a single-engined plane); I imagine the usual 10% of the acquisition cost PA to run rule applies. About £50k to get to PPL(A)+NR+MEP+MEIR, so say £75k total if only one of us goes all the way. Might be able to recover some of the ownership costs by renting the plane out, I suppose. Still, it's the thick end of £600k and two years done properly. Can't say I'm not tempted.

The carbon footprint comparison is interesting: for a family of four getting to (say) Milan - comparing commercial flights, a twin-piston light plane and driving in a typical 30mpg ICE car:

950km by plane gives 1.2 tons of corrected footprint from commercial; about 0.75 tons by Beech Baron G58; 1300km by car gives about 0.3 tons at 30mpg (which is what we get from our XC90 T8). So commercial is a bit less than twice light aviation which is in turn a bit more than twice automotive (not accounting for the Shuttle, and considering only fuel emissions, not construction/eventual disposal etc). The light plane would be comfortably the quickest door-to-door, once you allow for all the arsing about at airports.

Those are some great calculations and really interesting to see it laid out like that. I too have had 3 classics, now 2 and found 3 was too much for me to keep on top of. I live in rural Worcestershire so am lucky re congestion issues. I think if you reduce to 1 (356) and pick your times to pop out you can still enjoy it in London.

[CarreraLightweightRacing]

Depends on what you call modern; I'd say there is a lovely little sweet spot between the two. My toys are from the late 90's in the main and just strike that perfect balance of modern reliability, performance, tactility and fun, without the concerns of numbness and digital interference of the newer Gen cars or the troubles you are facing with the classic cars. Below refers but other great options are available

[anonymous-user]

I’d never sell them, great, interesting, engaging and rare cars not some boring churned out by the million modern Porsche.

I think people are living in a dream world of they think ICE only has a few years left, we don’t even have fibre optic broadband in all of North Wales yet and as to any sort of electric car infrastructure, hardly.

Maybe in London they have 5-10 years left but it’ll be at least another generation before we see any sort of ‘ban’, I mean seriously even the cheapest EV is circa £25k at the moment (new), how many people can actually afford that?

Enjoy your old cars, I know I plan too.

[Geneve]

Sadly, the 'golden age' of motoring is now past. The future is rapidly unfolding and will be very different.

I've had this conversation with many people and they cite numerous factors - environmental responsibilities, legislation, social change, congested roads, poorly maintained roads, political indifference, automation, time pressures.......... and it is true that many youngsters no longer aspire to own a car, they want a choice of convenient, low cost, mobility options.

This doesn't mean that interest in older, or enthusiast, cars will disappear, but it will become more of a nostalgic hobby. And, values will fall, so they will become more accessible. But, come what may, I'll always have an air-cooled 911 in my garage - alongside my vinyl albums and analogue hifi, my 35mm Leica and my mechanical wristwatch

However, for the hands-on 'adrenalin buzz' with a level of freedom, I do believe that motorsport and aviation will still fill that gap for many more years.

[BertBert]

I propose that the debate about IC cars, collectability, younger generation is priamrily a financial question of value and clouds the more important questions.

The most important question (assuming the cars are for fun) is where do you get fun?

How much is in the resto to perfection projects?
How much is in driving fun cars?
How much is in the ownership, feel, looking and polishing?
How much is in the tinkering?
How much is it important that the collection makes money, doesn't loose money, doesn't loose too much, doesn't represent a big financial risk?

So if you ask yourself some questions like those, where do you get to? I have obviously no idea about what you are interested in of course And they are not loaded questions and they may not be the right ones, but it might help.

For me
- the resto process which I thought i would enjoy is pretty vile frankly. So slow, not perfect, hard to find the right people and absurdly slow and did I mention how slow it was? And it costs too much for me. And I don't have the interest in taking the risk that the end product will be worth something approximating the cost.
- driving fun cars, Don't get much time to do that. But that's the fun for me. Taking my 69T out with Mrs Bert for a few weekends away and the occasional but very rare run somewhere.
- Ownership is nice, looking, washing, polishing, bragging
- Tinkering is nice, but I'm sitting here typing when I should be out in the garage trying to bolt the driveshaft on that fell off!
- Financially, I bought the car restored, paid more for it than I would get now, but it's a relatively low risk. Even if I had to sell it at 1/2 or 1/3 of the price paid, It would be ok ish,

So I got rid of my classic resto mod which although brilliant, after a 100 years to get it to where it was it still wasn't right and I couldn't face more of the restorer world. As CLR says above, I got a modern 'classic' a 997.1 GT3 clubbie that gets all the driving as it fits my travel round the UK.

Sorry to ramble on.
Bert

[Mikebentley]

Bert, are you ok hun! We all get like that. My old relatively simple Triumph has always been a joy to own. The XK140 not so much as it fights me at every turn. I have a young family and hobby time is rare and precious,
I have started looking at more modern options so that we can all go out together still but I can also get my fix.

[964Cup]

I thought there would be more pleasure in restoration (done by others) and tinkering (done by me) than I've found so far. In part this is down to lack of time (and here in London, space) for the tinkering - meaning that I'm often up against time pressure for jobs that inevitably take longer than they should.

I also thought it would be a way back into a world where I once made a number of lifelong friends. I did track days rather seriously at the end of the 90s, and raced in the Porsche Cup, Open and Intermarque in the early 2000s. I liked that world, even if it sometimes had a whiff of "loadsamoney" about it. These days I get the same kicks and friendships from cycling - I'm active in the local club, and co-own the local bikeshop - but wanted to broaden my horizons. I still might, but there just doesn't seem to be a classics scene over here in the same way that there is in the States - all of the active 356 fora and meets I read about appear to be in the US, for instance. Jury's still out on this aspect, anyway. If the RS is ever fixed, I may do some track days for auld lang syne, although it will be hard to give 100% in something that's supposed to be an "investment".

As for driving pleasure, I'm really struggling to find it.Obviously living not just in the SE but in London doesn't help. The original theory was that Mrs 964Cup and I would sneak off for the occasional weekend lunch in nice places using one or other of the more civilised toys. The vision was Oxfordshire lanes blurring past to the accompaniment of the rasp from the 356's race exhaust. The reality is overheating on the North Circular trying to get to Hangar Lane while everyone else is trying to get to Wembley for some sub-par warbling from a teenage idiot, or to Ikea to buy more flat-packed lifestyle. In my head, buying a car from the 60s would allow me to time-travel back to a more civilised era that was less crowded and less policed. I think I knew this was a fallacy (or fantasy) even as I bought the car, but didn't let myself recognise it.

I don't need to sell the cars to buy another one, but I can't dress up an i8 Roadster, 911 Targa or Taycan (the current, slightly eclectic, shortlist) as an "investment", I barely ever drive anywhere for work, I commute by bicycle, so if I'm not finding pleasure in driving, why would I buy yet another car? I've done the whole supercar thing before anyway, and had already fallen out of love with it a decade ago. The only car I really miss from a long string of toys is my 993RS, but those are now too expensive to use (and a lot older than they were when I have mine in the late 90s - and so much more likely to keep going wrong).

It's interesting that the answers to this thread have largely been concurring - I thought there'd be more passionate defence of classics, and cars in general - and I'm not ignoring those who have pitched in on that side. One consensus seems to be that the right "fun" car to own is a recent-ish track special - something like a 997.2 or 997.1 GT3 RS. New enough to work properly, old enough to have some analogue nature left, and usable for track days with enough civilisation to survive being driven to them even if they're on the continent. The trouble is, track days for me were never enough, and a track special has a pretty limited set of use-cases - we're not going to go to the Charles Napier in a GT3RS.

Perhaps the answer is to stop trying to pretend I'm doing anything other than spending money, and use that money to buy race seats. Something like Britcar would probably scratch all the right itches, and four seats a year would likely cost less than the probably unrecoverable resto costs plus insurance and storage fees that I'm burning on the classics.

[964Cup]

Or there's something like this, I suppose: https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/...

What do we think of the GT3 Touring? Civilised enough to tootle out to a restaurant, but hardcore enough for an RMA day at Spa? Or a bugger's muddle?

[Mikebentley]

I see you clearly have an affection towards the Porsche and I can see why. It would to me seem the biggest issue is where you are. I can use mine in a way they were intended. The roads and countryside of Worcestershire and Oxfordshire are instantly accessible as I live in Malvern. I am also able to have the cars where I live meaning I can use them on a whim.

It would also seem you are a person who knows what they want and have and do pay to achieve it. This is also the thing with your reasoning as you are seemingly “ throwing good money after bad”. I don’t mean to be rude in any way but my examples are. My Triumph has been with me 14 yrs and cost £1500.00. I spent £4K restoring it 6/7 yrs ago and it is insured for £16k. It doesn’t really owe me anything. The Jaguar was about £50k and some would feel it could be due a restoration which could cost anything between £50k and £100k. I would then be left with a car that was too precious to use that owed me more than it’s value which as we all know is never guaranteed. Therefore I choose to maintain as required not sweat it and enjoy it warts and all. The more that choose to restore the better for me because original cars with patina are the rarest of all.

If I lived in that there London I too might consider a modern electric something truly special but I don’t know of anything. Maybe you are the perfect candidate for an electric converted classic.

[Geneve]

964Cup said:

Or there's something like this, I suppose: https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/...

What do we think of the GT3 Touring? Civilised enough to tootle out to a restaurant, but hardcore enough for an RMA day at Spa? Or a bugger's muddle?

Desirable car, prettier without the rear wing, you have the nice warm pleasure of ownership - but, there are better 'road cars' (for UK use) and a CS would be better for track use. And values will be mileage sensitive. [Touring owner]

[jakesmith]

highway said:

It’s not just the local anti car rulings that will hammer the nails in. It’s the proliferation of average speed cameras as well.

This is already making people's lives a misery and it's going to be everywhere. I used to enjoy a hoon up an empty A316 by Twickenham early morning / late when I lived in the area, it's now miles of 40mph SPECS. And if I'm limited to speeds like that I might as well not be in a sports car at all & drive a small city car that does 65mpg

[roca1976]

Consolidate all 3 into a back date 911?

https://www.jzmporsche.com/used-vehicle-details/Po...

Less drama if dinged compared to the RS and you could build your perfect spec?

[964Cup]

roca1976 said:

Consolidate all 3 into a back date 911?

https://www.jzmporsche.com/used-vehicle-details/Po...

Less drama if dinged compared to the RS and you could build your perfect spec?

Thought hard about this. The trouble with back-dates (especially 2.7RS and 3.0ST recreations) is that you have to put a lot of money in if you want a properly usable car - effectively you have to build a properly-restored 964 and then put the backdate bodyshell and interior over the top. What you end up with is potentially fun - although 964s need more on-going attention than you'd think - but worth less than the sum of its parts. There's been some froth out there in back-date pricing, driven by the likes of Singer, but ultimately I don't think any of them will hold their value. Especially since the 964-based stuff still has 13 years or so before it gets historic status, which at least gets you off the ULEZ and other emission-restriction issues. A lot of them seem to be built as semi-race spec as well, with stripped out interiors and so on. I don't get that at all, since they're going to be less fun around a track than a proper track car, but much less usable for touring than a car with a conventional interior.

I understand the whole pleasure-of-ownership thing, up to a point, but I still want a car I can use. That means it has to be able to make the drive to Normandy for instance, including crawling out of London and doing 300k of autoroute on a hot summer's day, without overheating, cooking me alive or leaving me completely deaf. So it needs an overspec cooling system, aircon (or at least half-decent ventilation), sound-deadening and a stereo that works. A big part of the frustration that started this post was that even 90s Porsches really aren't up to modern traffic conditions without a huge amount of restoration and improvement work - it's not just London; this summer I had hours of almost-stationary traffic on the M20, plus a failed Shuttle that required an hour or so of crawling around at walking pace in 35 degree heat. I was in the 964 cabrio, so at least I could put the top down, but a combination of this week's odd fault (the VDO ECU that controls the onboard computer display deciding to run at about 90 degrees C, meaning that the recently-refurbished-at-vast-expense factory AC was struggling to cool the cabin) and the ongoing issues with the cooling system (not sure what's causing it but in stationary traffic the car starts to run hot - not overheating as such, but above half-way and as a result starting to have a recalcitrant second-to-first gear change - current candidates are the aux fan and the ballast resistor on the oilcooler fan) made the whole experience slightly nerve-wracking rather than just irritating.

It's surprisingly easy to build a car that works well on track - it's mostly running at WOT, it has plenty of airflow, the clutch is either in or out, the road surface is smooth, you're not concerned about noise (in fact you're probably wearing earplugs under your helment) or ventilation, and you only ever brake like you mean it. Getting something that works in modern traffic is much, much harder, and so is keeping it that way - there's just so much to go wrong in early modern cars. At least with the 356 it's so basic that you can maintain it with a screwdriver and a lump hammer; the downside is that it's so basic that it doesn't even have a ventilation fan. The 964 has a whole bunch of early-90s electronics in it, all of which will go wrong at some point, usually when you're far from help.

Anyway, enough first-world problems. I may just have talked myself into a GT3. This is bad. I'm off to lie down in a darkened room for a moment's reflection...

[roca1976]

I had a small collection of 7 x 80/90s exotic bikes (rc45, ow01, zx7rr, rg500, etc) I was lucky if one was working at any one time... often ran out of space and patience! In the end I sold them off one at a time and bought a modern bike which only requires basic maintenance and will always start and would take me wherever in the world I want to go.
I am certainly happier and less stressed trying to keep an expensive fleet running!
997 GTS might be reasonable compromise and still retain some of the old car character and size?