The year the cars stopped

[Grundig]

While I was putting petrol in my Mk2 Passat, the guy in a 64 plate mundayo  on the pump next to me, told me that my mk2 was too old to be a Passat ??

[Lacquer Peel]

I am a 29 year old man, the last new plate change I remember being excited about was the 1996 'P' plate.

[vulgalour]

Grundig: shiny suit, shiny forehead, slight odour of desperation to be the Joneses and not really even keeping up?  I say ignore him, he was clearly a funt.

[Vin]

The first plate change I understood happening was as a 9 year old in 1985...Our neighbour across the road got a a new C reg Lada estate...

 

I've never owned a 2001 onwards registration car...I don't want to...

 

The 1999 Marea Weekend is my daily. I do 120 miles a day in it. I got it in Feb 2013 with 67k on the clock, it's now 135k ...It's coming on for 16 years old, but I can't think of anything that I want to replace it with...I have colleagues with company cars (I opted out years ago) my employer insists on VAG products (apart from a lone Alfa Giulietta) but I really could not do it...

 

To me it all ended on the reg change in 2001.

[AlabamaShrimp]

I do think it's strange when you see the new type number plates on a new car and realise it's about 14 years ago that they changed.

 

It might not make them classics* but when a car becomes noticeable it's starting to go that way. What I mean is there were millions of Escorts, Sierra and cavaliers but you see one now and remember it's ages since you saw one last. (this makes no fucking sense )

[jakebullet]

I can't see myself owning a new style number plate car. In my head they're 'too new', plus the emissions based taxation? Bugger that. Never know when you'd want a silly engine.

 

I was following a city rover the other day (at 15mph), and could maybe make an exception as they look truly dismal. But if memory serves they're daft tax for a 1.4, so I'm oot.

[doobietoo]

I am old enough to remember the Ford Sierra being a new and spaceship looking car and i remember being soooo disappointed when the bonnet was opened and there was that old anchor of a motor where a new modern unit should have been.

 

Vintage is for me pre-60s or seperate ladder chassis and wings so the mini and Rover P4 are not vintage but the Ford Pop is...

Old is 60-to mid 80s so monocoque but with squared off ends and front grills what i think of as the pre Sierra era.

Modern is mid 80s to about 2004 ish generally smoothed off with little in the way of character and increasingly more unneeded electronics.

Post 2004 i dont trust yet but do like some of the styling i also include the Juke as a car i will probably own as a modern in the future.

[Pete-M]

I can't put an age definition on classic. Some cars are classics the minute they're built, others never ever will be.

[danthecapriman]

I remember cars like Volvo 240/740, Cortina's and Sierra's etc being new or at least not that old, yet I liked them then and I still like them now.

But, the cars since the 90's and especially the last 10 years I hate them for the most part, and as they get older I still have no love for them!

One particular car for me, was the old Lexus's, a mate and his dad used to love them and go on about how good they were. I couldn't see anything in them, they were just bland boring big jap cars, nothing nice or unique about them. Fast forward to now and I'm pleasantly surprised to find the banger racers are now doing their best to smash them all up!

Thing is, when they were smashing old Jags, Granada's, yanks etc I thought what a shame it was. But I don't feel the same way now they are doing the same to much newer cars.

 

I suppose people in the next decade or so will look back in much the same way, liking the 90's and 2000's cars. But it certainly won't be me!

[mercrocker]

Don't anybody tell the Vintage Sports Car Club that Ford Pops are vintage!    Classic is a term I never use (I know I just did, but not about a car).  

 

There are just proper ones and rubbish ones in my polarised view of the world.  Sometimes a rubbish one can become more appealing with age but this is happening with considerably less and less frequency and tends to take about a human generation.

 

I totally agree with the posts about the new number plate system.  I am unable to yet accept the onset of the 21st century (outside of anything Gerry Anderson made) so there would be little point me owning, wanting or aspiring to anything that patently doesn't yet exist but even if I would or could I still could not accept a mainland British number plate with a Z in it.   Neither can I yet understand that the last three letters have absolutely no significance in determining where the car was originally registered.   

 

Gradually, very gradually, things do enter the part of my brain labelled "want" .   For example, after some 40 years of poo-pooing Jap cars I have recently detected some trouser movement when contemplating a mate's very tidy Laurel.   Of course I waited until there aren't any left...

[DS20]

 

 

Vintage is for me pre-60s or seperate ladder chassis and wings so the mini and Rover P4 are not vintage but the Ford Pop is...

 

 

I'm fairly certain that the Rover P4 has a separate chassis...at least, mine does  

 

[/pedant] 

[D Spares & Tyres]

I think that anything that stands the test of time deserves to be saved. I can only have affection for old stuff that turned out to be good, like the Peugeot 1980`s range which always looked like they would fall apart at any moment whereas the equivalent Ford felt good and solid.

 

The test of time proved me wrong there so now I respect the old Pugs more

 

Having said that, a tidy rust free 80` Ford is far more interesting than similar pugs due to the difficulty of stopping Ford rust.

 

I wonder which of todays cars will stand the test of time? I reckon the Korean stuff....