► Six CAR writers confess
► Expensive, infuriating
► And worth every penny
Our classic cars have cost us more money than most of us would like to admit. They have demanded time, patience, expensive storage and many frustrating oil-smeared moments. They contradict the romantic notion that classic car ownership brings to life the fantasies of the past. In truth, it inevitably involves more hassle than running a modern. Pricey and impractical our old cars may have been. But, on reflection, none of us has the slightest regret.
Gavin Green – Citroen Light 15
It cost me £117 to drive from Whitechapel, where my Light 15 is currently spending time as a showroom exhibit at a Citroen garage, to the photographic studio just east of Dagenham, where the cover photo was taken. A 16-mile journey, at £7.25 a mile, proves the financial folly of my first dabble with classic cars.
It’s not that the Light 15, a 1953 Slough-built model, is expensive to keep going. Rather, the problem is that I seem to do more keeping (£8812, including purchase price) than going (1215 miles), I’ve had it three years now, and bought it more because I’d always wanted a Light 15 – one of the most beautiful cars ever built, as well as being one of the most mould-breaking – than because I foresaw any use for the thing.
Since I bought it, the longest trip it has undertaken was to Cambridge – where it acted as a bridal car for my wife’s cousin – and back. It overheated on the way, briefly stranding me, but still got the bride to church on time.
The Light 15’s idle lifestyle is not because it’s a troublesome car, nor because I dislike driving it. Quite the converse: it’s wonderful for slow tootling on country lanes. Rather, its inactivity is due to my (not unusual) circumstances. My three-bed terrace in London doesn’t have a garage, and I’m not prepared to pay central London garage rental fees. Upshot: it lives 30 miles away, where the rent is cheap, but regular visits are impractical. Second, since I bought the Citroen, the Green family has grown from two to three. Baby Henry’s idea of a good day out is not going motoring in the congested south east.
No, the pleasure I get from owning my Citroen comes from just that: owning it. I get a little glow of satisfaction knowing that my car, my car, is one of the most important in the history of motoring.
Purchase price – £6000
Repairs and running costs (including: five Michelin X tyres £330.62, exhaust £88.60, petrol and oil £80, sundry repairs and servicing £480) – £979.22
Road tax, storage and insurance (four years) – £1833
Total – £8812.22
Mileage – 1215
Cost per mile – £7.25
Martin Chappell – Fiat 500
How does the chief test driver at Lamborghini get to work? By Fiat 500, of course. Even Ferrari Formula One driver Jean Alesi has one tucked away at home. Now no-one is pretending that it’s the last word in performance motoring, but with its cheeky looks, compactness and large cloth sun roof, the 500 is a lot of fun.
It was for that reason that I bought a Fiat 500L, by far the most desirable model. The L – which stands for ‘luxury’ – features lavish comforts like reclining seats, carpets, a centre console and padded door trims. I found one for the knock-down price of £50.
My bargain buy consisted almost entirely of iron oxide, though the engine ran and the trim had survived unscathed. A brief run revealed a duff battery but no nasty mechanical surprises – apart from the difficulties of grapping with non-synchro gears and 500cc: The only thing requiring major attention was the bodywork.
I enlisted Fiat specialist Proietti Motors, to help with this. And got rather a shock. Although body parts come cheap, nearly every panel had to be replaced, increasing my initial £50 expenditure by a factor of 30. Furthermore, initial claims about the operation’s timescale have proved rather optimistic. Now, 18 months later, the paint has still to be applied.
Purchase price – £50
Repairs and running costs (including battery £30, engine bits £50, bodywork and painting £1600)
Total – £1730
Mileage – 4
Cost per mile – £432.50
Richard Bremner – Alfa Giulietta
I’ve just had some crushing news. It seems that that’s all the Giulietta you see in these pictures is fit for. No picture of health, as you can see, it is considerably worse in the areas in which one commonly likes to rest the feet when travelling aboard in automobile. The decomposition runs deeper than that, too – just about every box section and longitudinal beneath the plimsoll line is crusty enough to grate cheese on. The verdict of ferrous oxide expert Colin Goodwin, who lived with that E-type for a week, is that the Alfa needs more money spent on it than sense suggests is wise. Still, sense never got in the way of my past purchases, and I haven’t completely given up hope of it rolling again.
That’s certainly what I had in mind when I bought the Giulietta, a car I had craved for years, mostly its exquisite looks. In my humble opinion, this is one of the most attractive cars of the period, though it would take wild imaginings to believe it after a glance at mine. Still, wild imaginings were at work when the lump arrived from North Wales, and I set about a post-purchase inspection feeling. I now know, inappropriately pleased. Not as pleased as the previous owner, I now suspect, who probably couldn’t quite believe what he was reaping in return for a long sweaty trek to my home in Surrey, and delivery of a crumbling dream. But, a fool and his money…
I’ve got more than pride invested in this heap – there’s the question of the £1900 notes I paid for it three years ago, just as the classic car price boom began to ring loud, the £500 I spent on some decent second-hand bumpers, spare windscreens (optimistic, I know, but all this stuff came in a job lot) and replacement bonnet and boot lids, the £90 grille I bought the other day (which doesn’t appear to fit) and the quartet of hubcaps, at £15 apiece, that I was assured were for a Giulietta but which I now discover are for an early Alfa GT Junior. Plus, there are the storage costs of around £430, for three years’ slow decay in a barn.
Why didn’t I get on and start restoration three years ago, when there would have been slightly more Giulietta to restore? Because I’ve been diverted by an Alfasud, a 1957 Citroen DS and a half shared in a Citroen GS, none of which I could resist on the way to where I am now. Which is a bit depressed, to be honest. Perhaps I need to learn how to use a MiG welder. Torching the wallet would be a good start.
Purchase price – £1900
Repairs and running costs (including bumpers, bonnet, boot lid, glass £500, hubcaps £60, grille £90) – £650
Storage – £430
Total – £2980
Mileage – (about 20 yards, pushed)
Cost per yard – £149
James Ruppert – Mini Cooper
What makes my recent decision to build myself a Mini Cooper absurd is that I’ve already got one – an original 1964 997cc example – that has barely turned a wheel in the past 13 years. I justified the purchase of two 1967 Minis (CAR, November 1991) – a 998cc Morris Cooper and an Austin De Luxe – on the grounds that I needed a spare.
The original plan was simply to transplant all the mechanical bits from the comprehensively corroded Cooper into the sensibly sound Austin. But the project mushroomed, and I found myself embarking on Plan B, which, of course, cost three times as much. A new wing and A panel, numerous other parts, full strip respray and 120 hours of labour later, I had a Cooper that looked the part.
Slipping a Cooper into my motoring hasn’t been easy. For all the town car virtues, having no synchro on first is a stop-start nightmare, and if parking it is easy, there’s no guarantee it’ll be there when I get back. Now I carry the rotor arm with me. But it’s the best, most practical classic you can own. Chuck it about on a quiet lane, and it’s slow enough to be harmless.
If I wanted to punish myself and my bank balance further, I could, as the originality bores insist, retrim the seats in Cooper colours. Also, the engine could be rebuilt, just for the hell of it. But at the moment I am more than happy behind the wheel. The Cooper gets at least one airing a week – my minimum motoring fix – as this is the only car that I take on aimless journeys just for fun. But one doubt nags: wouldn’t it be just as much fun if I had stuck to the original, cheap, Plan A?
Purchase price – £750
Repairs and running costs (including restoration £3146.90; petrol and oil £50) – £3196.90
Road tax and insurance (classic insurance, 3000 miles) – £194
Total – £4140.90
Mileage – 500
Cost per mile – £8.28
Paul Horrell – Fiat Spider
My car was fairly cheap, given it’s a two-seat convertible by Pininfarina from the heyday of the Italian sports car. I’ve not paid any big restoration bills, either. It has never been off the road for long. But I can’t escape the fact that it represents three years of steady financial haemorrhage. The bodyshell was sound when I bought it, and it was perfectly capable of hauling itself up the road. In fact, I covered 4000 miles in the first summer. But the car was built to flaccid American specification, so needed a perkier engine and firmer suspension. That wasn’t really the point, though. What mattered was that almost every last one of the mechanical organs was on the way out, so in the years between then and now I’ve had a remorseless succession of gremlins. As I fix each one, so a new one stands in its place. Now the car has a rebuilt (by me) engine, new induction system, new exhaust, replaced starter, new alternator and battery, replaced steering box, rebuilt gearbox, new rear axle bearings, new dampers, new brakes pads (twice – I’ve done a lot of miles), new tyres. And, since it’s Italian, a million fuses and electric connectors. Then there’s the cosmetic restoration. Cue restored alloy wheels, a new hood, seats, console, dash top, badges. And it would have been imprudent not to add battery charger, tow rope, jump leads and fire extinguisher.
But it still looks tatty. So next week it’s going to the sprayer, who’ll give it the new Pininfarina right front wing I’ve just paid for (the original was bodged after a blow sustained before my ownership). Then he’ll turn the whole thing a glorious ’70s yellow. That won’t be the end of it. This winter I’ll have to re-bush the suspension and re-pipe the brakes. By then the thing will be worth about half the money I’ve sunk into it. Just as well I did the work myself rather than praying garages. And just as well I like it too much to sell.
It’s satisfying to drive something the well-being of which is so much down to me. Then there’s the simple fun of using an old-fashioned yet able, stylish open sports car. When it’s sunny I happily choose to drive it, instead of any shiny modern car.
Purchase price – £3600
Repairs and running costs (includes among other things old Euro-spec engine to rebuild £150; piston rings, bearings, oil seals, gaskets £180, camshafts £115; Weber carburettors purchase and rebuild £240; gearbox rebuild by garage £250; front wing £320, dampers £150; hood £240; steering box from scrap lhd Lada £100; exhaust £240; tyres £180 Cromadora wheels purchase and restoration £240; petrol and oil £1200) – £5220
Road tax, storage, insurance (four years) – £2250
Total – £11,070
Mileage – £11,500
Cost per mile – 96.3p
Colin Goodwin – Datsun 240z
I knew I was in trouble when the MOT man started sucking through his teeth. He had that look; the sort of look that policemen wear in films, when they’re about to impart news of a death. My ’73 Datsun 240Z’s front crossmember was beginning to go.
That was in March 1989, three years after I’d bought the car.
Back in 1986 the 240Z was just another old car. It cost me only £950, which was about £500 more than I had to spend. Still, it looked exciting – far more exciting than most £950 cars did at that time – so I borrowed some cash and bought it. My wife Anna and I used the car regularly. We had to – it was all we had. Then in about 1988 something terrible happened to the Z. It became a classic car.
When it was merely old, I’d have whacked a few patches over the holes and all would have been well until the next cavity appeared. But for an appreciating classic, that wasn’t good enough. So in went a new crossmember and out came the engine – after all, there was little point in fitting a smart new panel and not respraying the whole engine bay. Once that was done, it didn’t seem a good idea to put a dirty, smoky engine back in. So I took the motor to bits.
The empty engine bay looks great. Note my change into the present tense. Yes, three years later, the car is still a non-runner. I have excuses; I bought and restored a house in 1990, and I’ve also restored my Laverda motorbike. It’s pathetic, really. I reckon I could have rebuilt the engine in a couple of weekends, and at no great cost, either. My latest self-imposed deadline is the end of the summer. Which is the same as last year’s deadline.
Purchase price – £950
Repairs and running costs (including: front wing £55, welding and paint £1200, 36 months running costs £1000, petrol and oil £1500) – £3755
Road tax and insurance – £900
Total – £5605
Mileage – 21000
Cost per mile – 26.7p
