Europe defines "classic cars"

[spunkymonkey]

Not, this time, an EU-style "straight bananas" ruling but from the Federation International des Vehicules Anciens.

They've decided that, to be historic, a vehicle must be:

1) Over 30 years old
2) Preserved and maintained in a historically correct condition
3) Not used as a means of daily transport
4) Part of our technical and cultural heritage


Personally, I have a few problems with this:

1) How can you say that one, for example, MG Midget which is kept for shows only as Historic but another, in comparable condition, which the owner chooses to use and enjoy more often isn't?

2) Preserving and maintaining in a historically correct condition is not necessarily an option unless you're one of that elite group of collectors who can throw whatever funds are needed at your hobby to have parts manufactured to spec. Jeremy's neat and practical use of a landrover wash / wipe switch on another thread would lose his historic status straight away!

3) Part of our technical and cultural heritage - surely that varies so much from one place to another that it could cause all sorts of problems. Dafs, for example, can hardly be called part of Britain's technical heitage because the (novel) technology had nothing whatsoever to do with Britain. Similarly, much as we love them, they can hardly be said to have contributed to British Cultural heritage - they simply didn't sell well enough here.

Apart from the charm of the cars themselves, one of the few attractions to saving old vehicles is their historic status - which goes some way to offsetting the increased servicing, poor spares availability and general hassle (which we all love really) of maintaining and running them.

Take that away and how many more of the "ordinary" classics will be lost? Obviously, the Rolls Royces, Panhards, Borgwards and so on will still be saved but what of the rest?

Apparently this definition has been welcomed by the FBHVC (who are "well represented" on the FIVA administration and the "largest national representative group") because they're worried about the classics movement "becoming too large and vocal" and raising eyebrows in some places. Surely those raised eyebrows should be something for them to lobby and defend against rather than cutting off the roots of the movement they represent?

Does anyone else have any thoughts, good or bad, about this move?

www.fbhvc.co.uk/fiva/index.htm

www.fiva.org/E/Archive/Hot%20News.html

[jeremy]

I think we have to read between the lines on this one. Just looking at the positive side, it adds weight to the reintroduction of the rolling Historic vehicle "free" road tax if there's now an EU definition of an historic vehicle.
I think the advioce from the FBHVC guys is to not rock the boat. These are general words and the detail allows much room for interpretation. On the daily use issue; this has come about as the lobbying has been along the lines of "these classics do relatively little mileage." This probably still applies to most of us. After all, I don't use my classic EVERY day, M'lud.....
I have two classics, but the majority of my mileage is on a Pendolino - and before that in my Range Rover.
The "original condition" clause is meant to exclude that set of DAF 33 wheel nuts with an Opel Corsa bolted on and the owner looking for a free tax disc. Clearly no classic of any vintage can be completely original but I'm sure that when the dust settles we'll be OK. There are already clear points strategies set for retaining old registrations in the UK and something like that will probably appear.
I hope I'm not being naive but the "keep your heads down chaps" line from the FBHVC rings true to me.
Jeremy the Optimist.

[spunkymonkey]

I agree wholeheartedly about keeping heads down and the reintroduction of a rolling age test would be more than welcome (a good point - I hadn't spotted the implication of that clause!) .

What I'm not so confident on is how the rest might be interpreted by certain agencies here in the UK. Then again, I'm currently preparing to push DVLA into court over a penalty charge for a car I haven't owned for over a year so maybe I'm feeling cynical

Joe the would-love-to-be-optimistic-but-feeling-slightly-cynical

[Onne]

I do use my Classics daily... am I now naughty?

[dafdaffer]

as gladdys has to pay road tax (missed out by 28 days) it matters not to me whether the boffins say that its a classic or not, its a car that i choose to have, the only thing that could be a problem if they go the route of cars have to be scrapped after a certain age or the classic car insurance companys make me have to have a standard policy.

most other classic car owners, mg jag and the like have never seen DAFs to be classic cars so whats the worry?

[spunkymonkey]

To Onne first - no, you're not naughty but your classics may not be as classic as you think.

I can see, and agree to some extent, with the points made by others. My concern isn't so much the definition as the way such a definition might be implemented. I'm not sure the "car club types" who've agreed it have really considered how the "government types" might use it:

Lose Historic status and you're likely to lose the free road tax (and possibly be put into an artificially high band as an excessive polluter...)

Insurance companies may also chose to follow the same when accepting or refusing classic insurance. I suspect not, because classic owners do tend not to hit things, but it would leave it open to them if they did - or to "two tier" the system for those "officially Historic" or not.

The "daily driver" bit could easily be interpreted by the likes of our Secretary of State / DVLA as "under 500 miles a year, must be garaged / not kept on the road at all other times" (that bit would catch us out at the moment - we have nowhere off road) or even "only / mostly used for organised historic shows and rallies". Any restriction here could bring in problems under the HRA for "peaceful enjoyment of your property" but the idea is to avoid making noise, not start suing the Govt

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

Best thing is for all to remain calm and not rock the boat too much. But we live in interesting times where the "green" lobbyists are going all out to convince anyone who will listen (and worryingly, a lot of people are including policy makers) that cars are destroying the world.

And, as has already been pointed out, some of those legislators may view old cars as being very polluting.

Oh yes, Paul, you've just reminded me that I can report that at last, thanks to DOC and DCN, confirmation has come through that the Blue Bullet was born in 1972, so can now be classed as "VED free". Sorry about Gladys.

And, on a lighter note, and without being flippant, picking up Onne's question... well, the very fact that we own these delightfully "different" little Dutch belters, must mean that we have a natural tendency to be naughty!!

Peace and love, as Ringo would say.

[spunkymonkey]

A little clarification from someone on another forum who's fairly intimately involved with the discussions. He's confirmed that, at present, these are proposals rather fixed in stone and has given a little background to the need for them.

I stand by my concerns about how Governments might try to interpret this definition (as currently worded) but hopefully those will get ironed out as things progress. Definately something to keep half an eye on however it develops - especially if there really is that much dislike of us in some quarters!




It has been crystallised by the NEED to react to impending emissions regulations in 2010, which would effectively outlaw ALL classic vehicles and have them taken off the road.

In order to protect classic vehicles, the old car bodies all over Europe have for once come together to produce a workable set of proposals (note the word 'proposals').Obviously, as a starting point they had to define a classic car, hence the definition they have come up with, which is broad enough to roll in just about everybody. The "daily use" bit is smoke and mirrors and as Julian says, would be impossible to police. It is there to calm certain European countries whose complex insurance legislation makes it impossible to insure a classic unless you have regular use of another vehicle.

The 30 year date was used because it is already the accepted marker in almost all other European countries except the UK.

It is intended to be a rolling marker, and the 1980 date mentioned is, as far as I am aware, just an alternative suggestion that was proposed at one point.

None of this has sod all to do with car tax - that as now, will remain at the discretion of individual governments.

Before we jumped off of the precipice into recession, the All Party Working Group of MP's had just about got the Treasury to accept the return of the rolling car tax exemption, albeit at a 30 year cut off instead of the old 25 year bringing the UK into line with a number of Euro countries. However to pay for it there was going to be an "adminstrative" charge at a flat rate of £10 each time you renewed. The adminstrative charge was going to be able to reviewed 5 yearly only, and only then in line with inflation to prevent government stealthily jacking it back up. Also in line with European nations, the UK government was to introduce a cash incentive to scrap vehicles between 18 and 30 years old (18 years are the last vehicles sold before catalysts became a legal requirement). This was going to be the sterling equivalent of Euro1000 per vehicle (that's gone up a bit!).


I am in fairly regular contact with the principle politicians behind the scenes on this, and they have been chipping away at it for over 5 years. Given the present circumstances, when or if this happens is a good question.

FIVA and the British Federation deserve our support here. There are a surprisingly large number of people who would gladly have all old cars taken off the roads and confined to museums; indeed such a proposal has a weighty following in Brussels. The work FIVA are doing will guarantee old cars a place on Europe's roads for at least twenty years, and then the debate will start again.

[spunkymonkey]

$60 on regular plates??? The equivalent here (for anything after the arbitrary cut-off of 1972) is $175 under 1549cc engine and $268 for anything over!!!

That's at today's exchange rates btw - a couple of months ago it would have been even worse

[littlebelter]

You see the argument is not as simple as it might at first appear to be.

We Daffers (et al) have a vested interest in a) ensuring that our cars are not banned from the roads. b) keeping the concessionary tax rates.

It's all very well for the green lobby and politicians to latch on to the (minimal) pollution caused by our classics and seek to confine them to museums, even to advocate the scrapping of all vehicles over a certain age but such a policy is severely flawed.

One thing it would do would be to compel people to buy new cars and does not appear to consider the environmental impact of building new cars, both in terms of energy use and use of finite material resources.

The energy used to recycle older vehicles (or to recycle anything) is often quite considerable.

The energy and materials used to keep the oldies on the road must surely be very small by comparison.

Perhaps the politicians are not really interested in the environment and just want to find a way of reducing the vast surplus of new cars?

Regards,

Pete H.

[scooters]

thanks for the analysis of the definitions here.

One of the issues I have with the classic car community is that it seems that the minority (ie those wealthy enough to own and run the sorts of cars you see in the pages of Classic and Sports car) have more clout than the majority (ie us plebs wot read Practical classics guvnor)

I believe that if a car has cultural significance then it goes to say that the car will be a car of the people rather than a one off made for the super rich.

I do believe that the car industry has won the lobbying war on 'new' cars being enviromentally friendly - I mean you only have to look at the joke of the Lexus's supplied with a motor to ensure the 4 lt petrol engine can be classsed as a hybrid...hybrid my todger!

Only the other day I took my 12 year old Volvo estate in for a service to a main stealer who spent most of my time in his office trying to sell me a new V70. I pointed out that when my car had been sold in 1997 it was marketed with a 20 year lifespan and a logbook up to 350k (it is currently at 200k) so what the hell was he doing trying to sell me a new one when my one was just over middle aged??? Of course - new cars are expensive and few of us can afford to splash out 30k so we end up buying the car on tick - do not underestimate the reliance the financial services sector puts on selling us car loans - companies like Citroen have effectively been selling customers finance which happens to come in the form of a vehicle. The governments are well aware of this and will do anything to encourage the sale of new vehicles.

I, however, feel that we are on the verge of a change in culture. people will start asking - hold on why should I spend 30k on a new V70 when I can buy a 940 for £800 which will still be a reliable car and will cost me about the same (£1k per annum) running costs. For years the avaliability of credit has effectively driven the car market and has destroyed the used car market which was why I was able to buy that Daimler the other day for £800. It looks like even if the credit becomes avaliable once more folk will be a bit more cautious in getting hooked into one

The fact of the matter is that the vast majortiy of us who run older cars don't own a 1926 Bently - we own something from the 60's 70's or 80's and we will use it frequently. So how exactly this law will help us is somthing I question. There is a great deal of snobbery in the 'classic' world and it would be a darn shame if the only classics driving around in 5 years time were E types driven by those with the money to own them but not the skills to restore them - skills most of us have learned by messing around on 'lesser' cars

[dafdaffer]

here you are scooter i will give you one reason, although i will still have the ovlov any day ;D

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=86M_fV-1yKY

Paul

[Patrick]

A few mad conspiracy theories. (With apologies):

Want to know how Asda supermarkets expanded so rapidly in the 1990's?

Wouldn't have anything to do with Archie Norman - Then MP for Tunbridge Wells and CEO of Asda helping to draft legislation that loosened up planning regulations covering green belt land by any chance?

How about Tesco's rapid expansion in the 90's and Naughties? Surely - nothing to do with Sir Terry Leahy's involvement with the Government advisory panel on "Competition in the retail trade" - Oh, and his friendship with Tony Blair by any chance?

How about the curious fact that the price of diesel went up because new research showed that diesel vehicles were actually more polluting than petrol cars - just around the time when statistics showed the huge rise in cars being sold with a diesel engine?

Sorry about that - but my point is that I have a suspicion that with any new legislation on Classic Cars - I bet if you did a bit of digging you'd find the "Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders" are involved. After all - every classic car put off the road - could mean a shiny new one to replace it!

Just a thought.

[scooters]

that old 940 vs the modus clip....

been debated ad nausea on the volvo owner's club forum.

On the clip they don't mention the removal of much of the integrity of the 940's front end prior to the crash???

anyway, as I pointed out to my picasso driving mate who happens to be the head of Stirling Fire Brigade, the point of crashes is to avoid them - especially high speed ones and I'd still rather be in a 940 than a picasso as over 60mph it doesn't really matter - as you won't be walking away!

anyway dafdaffer - you drive a daf ffs! what are you doing swallowing channel five propaganda about crash tests!!!

[dafdaffer]

at the end of the day neither would have "walked away" from that crash, stopping your body that fast would have made a good mess of your internals

RE the DAF i am very aware that we would be wipped out in a crash, same goes for my euro box 307 and bmw 518.

my dad had 140's and 240's for over 20 years and has recentley given up on them and brought a citreon belingo, he still misses the volvo

re "ffs" no need for talk like that on this forum. you asked a question and i responded

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

Yes. DAF Daffer has pointed out the language feuxpas.

Also, this is starting to get away from proper DAF and Variomatic matters, so I might have to get my virtual red pen out.

Or... I could start using my powers.

[scooters]

dafdaffer

I do apologise for my ffs. It wasn't directed at you personally and if it gave that impression then I apologise for any upset caused. I was trying to give the impression ironic outrage and obviously missed the mark by some way.

all the best and hope you understand I wasn't trying to be offensive in any way.

Rich

[pyoorkate]

One of the things that frustrates me is that emissions regs take no account of the overall lifespan of the car; a huge proportion of the polluting output from any vehicle is in it's production; mining and manufacturing the materials to build it. But it seems that no government has any interest in taking this into account because, it seems, that they are in the pockets of the new car manufacturers.

As my mum's 5 year old car starts to develop faults, and my dad's old 1990s Cavalier has been crushed, I look outside and see two cars (one of the 60s and one of the 70s) which have needed very little to keep them on the road. Well, technically the Minor's had quite a lot

But still way less than the energy that'd go into producing the 3 or 4 modern cars that I'd've had to get through to get the same lifespan Most of my colleagues at work consider a 10 year old car well into the 'will break down at any minute' territory, and seem faintly astonished that I turn up every day in my Minor :-)

I'm not convinced that 'not rocking the boat' is the best plan. I think getting involved at this stage, while it's proposals is the best way to ensure that owner's of classic cars aren't shafted when these proposals are made into regulations.

[dafdaffer]

Hi Rich, (scooters) i too am sorry i went deffensive instead of looking at it in another light

;D no worries or harm done

Paul

[stefan]

I second what Kate has said (apart from turning up to work in a minor as i use a modern van)

[spunkymonkey]

Jan 5, 2009 14:55:11 GMT @pyoorkate said:

... Most of my colleagues at work consider a 10 year old car well into the 'will break down at any minute' territory...

With a 10 year old car, the chances are they're right. With a 25 year old, on the other hand.... But I guess that's pretty much the point you're making

On the subject of carbon emissions during manufacture, the latest estimates from Honda put it at a very reasonable 840kg or so to build a new car which equates to around 12000 miles of the difference between an old car and a new one on the road. This is starting to be used as evidence that the "keep 'em till they die" theory is flawed.

However, it involves a little sleight of hand on behalf of the manufacturers (surprise!). Unlike just about anywhere else, that figure takes no account whatsoever of the emissions involved in producing and transporting the raw materials. It's only the direct emissions from their own factories.

It's also potentially distorted by over-production - any factory has a certain baseline emissions that it will give even if it's not producing anything (assuming it's staffed of course). The more you make, the less those contribute to each individual product.

If you produce more vehicles than there's a demand for - which all the major makers have been doing - then the emissions per vehicle produced are nowhere near the emissions per vehicle required. On the other hand, if you reduce production to meet demand, then the emissions per vehicle increase to include a greater share of the baseline.

Unfortunately, the Green propaganda machine is running so fast that it's virtually impossible to get points like that made - if you try then you're just another one of those cranks who wants to doom us all to roast in the eternal fires of Global Warming.

It's been damn chilly round here for the time of year, btw ;D

[pyoorkate]

Aye, that's the thing isn't it. It's virtually impossible to calculate the energy cost of producing a new car... How far do you go?


The energy used transporting the raw materials to the factory
The energy used physically mining the raw materials, or drilling for and transporting the petrochemicals to make the plastics?
The fuel involved in getting people into the mines, or the factories to make the parts for the cars?

...you can go on adnauseum, but to discount raw material production entirely is, to my mind, fraudulent. Gah.