A while ago I was made redundant which meant I lost my company car.
Every cloud has a silver lining and in this case, I needed transport but didn’t have much money which sounded like an opportunity to buy an old retro car.
I won t get into the debate about how old is old enough. It s personal to the owner and we all have different ideas of exactly what makes a retro car but for me, moulded bumpers, traction control, ECU’s and catalytic converters are signs of the beginning of the end.
My old Golf GTI is nearly 20 years old and almost not old enough to be a true retro in my opinion, but let s say 20 years as a round figure.
This got me thinking.
My eldest son is a car mad and 13 years old. What will there be for him in a few years when he s 17? What will be the retro cars for the up and coming young generation?
I had a look around to see what the future retro community would have to look forward to and I wasn’t impressed.
A 2000 Citroen Xsara, 99Toyota Corolla, 99 Hyundai Accent, 98 Ford KA: all terminally dull and soulless. Even slammed with a set of banded steels they fall well short of the mark.
It doesn’t seem fair to me that we got the delights of cars such as MK1 & II Golfs, Sciroccos, Peugeot 205 GTIs, E28 BMWs, E30 BMWs and the likes whilst the young generation have these crappy euro boxes to look forward to.
Maybe my lad and his friends will look at these cars with the same fondness I look at ’70s and ’80’s cars now?
Maybe it s not about the car so much as how it makes you feel. Those feelings and emotions created in a particular time and place, experiences had in and around the cars, people you knew that had them and the adventures had in them.
An even more terrifying thought is what will my grand kids be left with?
If people continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed into thinking the scourge of hybrid or EV cars are somehow going to save the planet when in reality they do more damage than good, then in my opinion they re in for a rough ride. A hybrid or electric car that only has a realistic shelf life of up to 10 years will never get to be a retro car.