Once ordinary cars now defined as classics.

[NMNeil]

Checking out Craigslist I came across this.
https://lascruces.craigslist.org/cto/d/mesilla-par...
An old Austin 1100; the sort that I bought for next to nothing or was given when I was younger, now it's a 'classic' at 7,700 quid?
Any other older forum members having the same reaction to once cheap and ordinary cars from their youth?

[ClaphamGT3]

T’was ever thus.

[john2443]

You're going to have a shock when you look at Classic magazines and find they are restoring 90s cars!

[4Q]

My first car was an Austin 1100, it cost £115 with a years tax and mot and a full tank of petrol 36 years ago, I wouldn’t want to pay much more than that now.

[a8hex]

NMNeil said:

Any other older forum members having the same reaction to once cheap and ordinary cars from their youth?

You only have to look at how bonkers people go for Escorts.

[boyse7en]

What do you think a classic car is, if cars from the late 60s/70s are discounted?
Model T Ford's have been considered classics for decades, and they were the original mass market fodder.

[TR4man]

Practical Classics magazine regards any car as a classic if it is over 10 years old.

[PrinceRupert]

I'd say an ordinary car is a classic if it is sufficiently old that it isnt owned simply for transport but by enthusiasts who like the car. E.g. I have a 205, very common ordinary car in the 90s, but would anyone own one today if they weren't an enthusiast and just wanted cheap transport?

[a8hex]

TR4man said:

Practical Classics magazine regards any car as a classic if it is over 10 years old.

That makes both mine and the Mrs cars classics. One day I'd hope my X150 XKR would be classified as a classic but to me, it's still my new car. I probably didn't start to think of my X300 as classic until it was best part of 20 years old and I wasn't really driving it as a daily driver. The Mrs' car is E class, if I look back through their lineage a W123 would definitely count, a W124? Maybe, if I was in a generous mood that day but a W201?

PrinceRupert said:

I'd say an ordinary car is a classic if it is sufficiently old that it isnt owned simply for transport but by enthusiasts who like the car. E.g. I have a 205, very common ordinary car in the 90s, but would anyone own one today if they weren't an enthusiast and just wanted cheap transport?

I think we getting very close to the perennial "what's a classic" thread.
A 205 would get my vote, but back when 205 were desirable I had a Vauxhall Belmont (and Astra with a boot) it had a really nice engine, but I don't think I could ever see one as being a classic car. Howmanyleft don't even list the model I had and for the non injected version there might be three, didn't think I'd seen one in years. Seems no one else thought it a classic either.

[lowdrag]

Austin Ruby, £10. Vincent Comet, free in bits, BSA DBD34 Gold Star, £40, 1st E-type £300. My current 1961 E-type roadster cost £3,000. It is pointless going on, because we are all different ages and this is just recycling the "what is a classic?" theme.

[Clifford Chambers]

Think back to when you were 15, if a mates dad tooled around in a car 10yrs older than you he was either..in my case in the early 70s it would mean mates dad in a (just) post war car.


A) cool AF
B) miserly old git
C) Both


(the term classics hadn't been invented then)

[hiccy18]

I read the thread title and thought of this:

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1296840

I quite like the little Austin 1100, reminds me of one abandoned on my uncles farm when I was young. I suppose if a car brings back memories then it's a "classic" to someone, a bit like the Talbot reminding me of the father of my besty at primary school.

[2xChevrons]

Practical Classics' definition of 'anything 10+ years old and cheap' is probably going too far, but then that mag has always trod the line between 'proper' classics and the more grass-rootsy/penny pinching how-to-run-undesirable-old-cars-cheaply sectors. The very first issue from 1980 featured the Triumph Dolomite, which was still in production, and they were bigging up the TR7 when no example was more than 10 years old. They were running Farina-B Austin Cambridges and Series V/VI Hillman Minxes as project cars which were barely over a decade old. They certainly weren't classics.

At the same time PC was restoring Mk2 Jaguars, which were just rising out of the shady used-car-salesman/banger-racing/mutton-dressed-as-lamb years and becoming one of the stars of the '80s classic car boom.

I don't think anyone would disagree that my plain-Jane Austin Seven Mini 848cc Deluxe is a 'proper classic', even if it was also a decidedly ordinary car. When I use it over the summer I have a steady stream of people coming up to reminisce, most of whom are suprised/astounded at how much it's worth these days for what is a far from exceptional example condition-wise. Lots of anecdotes about how they had a knackered one in 1970 as a first car, one guy saying that he and a friend used to buy a rusty Mk1 Mini with a near-expired MoT each autumn to see them through the winter since they used motorbikes the rest of the year, and come spring they'd weight it in for scrap and share the proceeds.

It's a very rare car that enjoys classic status from new and never has a wobbly mid-life crisis when they're just seen as old and worthless. Even the Jag E-type didn't manage it. The Citroen DS didn't manage it. The Peugeot 205GTi didn't manage it. The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow didn't manage it. The Mini didn't manage it.

Some of them just take longer to get through the phases than others - the Austin/Morris 1100 and the basic versions of the Ford Escort Mk1/Mk2 have only got there in the past few years.

[AMGSee55]

Stuff like Morgans, TVRs etc are/were arguably born classics due to their specialist nature and low production volumes,, but they are rare exceptions to the rule I suggest.

[lowdrag]

2xChevrons said:

Some of them just take longer to get through the phases than others - the Austin/Morris 1100 and the basic versions of the Ford Escort Mk1/Mk2 have only got there in the past few years.

But all Escorts are, by association with their brethren, "sporty". All one can associate the Morris 1100 with (I had one as a company car - DBK 917 C) would be perhaps the MG1300, but where was the racing or rallying pedigree? It didn't and doesn't exist. Which IMHO is why Fords are dearer than BL cars.

[G111MDS]

2xChevrons said:

Practical Classics' definition of 'anything 10+ years old and cheap' is probably going too far, but then that mag has always trod the line between 'proper' classics and the more grass-rootsy/penny pinching how-to-run-undesirable-old-cars-cheaply sectors. The very first issue from 1980 featured the Triumph Dolomite, which was still in production, and they were bigging up the TR7 when no example was more than 10 years old. They were running Farina-B Austin Cambridges and Series V/VI Hillman Minxes as project cars which were barely over a decade old. They certainly weren't classics.

At the same time PC was restoring Mk2 Jaguars, which were just rising out of the shady used-car-salesman/banger-racing/mutton-dressed-as-lamb years and becoming one of the stars of the '80s classic car boom.

I don't think anyone would disagree that my plain-Jane Austin Seven Mini 848cc Deluxe is a 'proper classic', even if it was also a decidedly ordinary car. When I use it over the summer I have a steady stream of people coming up to reminisce, most of whom are suprised/astounded at how much it's worth these days for what is a far from exceptional example condition-wise. Lots of anecdotes about how they had a knackered one in 1970 as a first car, one guy saying that he and a friend used to buy a rusty Mk1 Mini with a near-expired MoT each autumn to see them through the winter since they used motorbikes the rest of the year, and come spring they'd weight it in for scrap and share the proceeds.

It's a very rare car that enjoys classic status from new and never has a wobbly mid-life crisis when they're just seen as old and worthless. Even the Jag E-type didn't manage it. The Citroen DS didn't manage it. The Peugeot 205GTi didn't manage it. The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow didn't manage it. The Mini didn't manage it.

Some of them just take longer to get through the phases than others - the Austin/Morris 1100 and the basic versions of the Ford Escort Mk1/Mk2 have only got there in the past few years.

Same here with my Mk1 Mini. It really does get some attention when I’m out in it. Will try to use it as much as possible again this summer

[//j17]

2xChevrons said:

Practical Classics' definition of 'anything 10+ years old and cheap' is probably going too far, but then that mag has always trod the line between 'proper' classics and the more grass-rootsy/penny pinching how-to-run-undesirable-old-cars-cheaply sectors.

It IS Practical Classics magazine, the whole point being cars the average man can afford to buy and enjoy. If you want your cars to be 'proper' classics (and cost so much your scared to drive them / have a 6:1 watch ad to car feature ratio) you can just buy Classic and Sports Car magazine instead.

I'm not sure I'd have gotten into classic cars if it wasn't for magazines like PC (though for anyone with a long memory it was actually Your Classic magazine that was responsible, showing me that the same money would buy either a 950cc Fiesta or a Triumph Spitfire - and the Spit's insurance would be 1/3rd the Fiesta's!).

Edited by //j17 on Monday 8th February 15:21

[XJSJohn]

TR4man said:

Practical Classics magazine regards any car as a classic if it is over 10 years old.

if thats the case everything i own is a classic

[2xChevrons]

//j17 said:

It IS Practical Classics magazine, the whole point being cars the average man can afford to buy and enjoy. If you want your cars to be 'proper' classics (and cost so much your scared to drive them / have a 6:1 watch ad to car feature ratio) you can just buy Classic and Sports Car magazine instead.

I'm not sure I'd have gotten into classic cars if it wasn't for magazines like PC (though for anyone with a long memory it was actually Your Classic magazine that was responsible, showing me that the same money would buy either a 950cc Fiesta or a Triumph Spitfire - and the Spit's insurance would be 1/3rd the Fiesta's!).

Edited by //j17 on Monday 8th February 15:21

I'm not criticising PC at all. I like it and I probably wouldn't be interested in cars the same way (if at all) if I hadn't grown up reading/ruining my Dad's stacks of PC.

I was just saying that just because a car is featured in PC doesn't make it a classic. Sometimes even PC aren't sure if a car they're featuring is a classic yet, and just because they were treated Austin Westminsters as classics (in the 'run it as a hobby on a sensible budget and you can commute if you want' sense) in 1987 doesn't meant that C&SC or The Automobile will think the same.

I've only owned old/classic cars and most of them have been of the PC 'old and generally undesirable, and thus affordable' sort which have become more esteemed and valuable with time, and thus I have effectively been priced out of the market. I would not be able to afford to buy my Mini or my 2CV now.

[edc]

For me a classic has some broad level of desirability otherwise it's just old and st