As mechanics, classic cars are one of our favourite things to see on the road . Everything from 1950-60's American cars, to 1980-90's JDM (Japanese domestic market) cars and even the very early pre-war autos of the 1900’s.
But, if you’ve ever considered owning one of these, exactly what does it take to keep them on the road?
While classic cars are definitely one of the coolest things to see out on the road, there’s a reason they’re so rare now and it’s something that effects a lot of decisions in our life, economic viability and obsolescence.
Though it’s hard to believe now, many of the very expensive classic cars on the market today were (at one point in their life) just old bangers.
At some point in their life, cars like the Holden Kingswood and Falcon GTHO were just cheap old cars in the same way that a Hyundai Excel is just a cheap old car.
Economic viability basically refers to whether the amount of money you put into a project (such as fixing an old car) will ever be returned. Much the same as doing major work in Excel in today’s market, at some point in the past, most of the cars we consider classics were thrown out because they were annoying and expensive to fix.
If so many of these cars were scrapped in the past, how come they haven’t gone extinct entirely?
This is the interesting part to us. While these cars were next to worthless at some point in their life, a lot of people have a lot of care for these cars as they get older. Whether it’s remembering family vacations from their childhood or someone in their community that had a hotted up Kingswood, car culture goes hand in hand with nostalgia.
So what does it take to look after these cars? Simply put it’s time and money.
The worst part about these old cars (besides the fact that they always break down) is that parts and knowledge to fix them just isn’t available any more. We know this personally as we’ve looked after and owned older cars ourselves.
Parts that are hard to come by mean these cars can end up spending lots of their life stuck in the shed and even worse, some parts just aren’t available at all, meaning some enthusiasts have to manufacture their own parts just to keep their pride and joy on the road.
While these cars are awesome to see in real life, it takes a special kind of person to look after them. Someone with enough time, money and love to keep fixing something even when parts are near impossible to find and it’s constantly breaking down.
If you have any questions about this blog post, would like a second opinion from a mechanic or would like to find an honest mechanic in Brisbane, check out Kashy here.