Classic Van & Pick-up Magazine Transit Pick-Up Back Issue

THE October issue, you may recall, had a sixties theme and November focused (to a degree) on the seventies. The plan was to follow those up with an eighties issue, which would have been this month. I know that you are all incredibly observant and will have noticed that there is no eighties theme. So, has the old boy lost the plot, you may well be wondering. Not at all, I lost momentum.
I enjoyed piecing together October’s CVP, because the sixties were (and probably still are) my favourite decade. That’s when it all happened (man) in terms of music, fashion, bikes, scooters, cars and light commercials. Interesting years. The seventies issue also gave me a buzz, because plenty of good stuff was trundling around on our roads. Then I started to formulate the contents for this month and, well, the eighties just didn’t do it for me. I wouldn’t say they were boring, but they kind of lacked any real pizazz. OK, editors aren’t supposed to admit things like that and are expected to make up treacly excuses why the contents have been changed. But at least I’m honest.
Anyway, having got that heinous confession off my chest, I now refer to a news story on page 11 which tells of a Citroen H-van selling for £50,000. Yes, that is 50k. It fetched that at the Automart at Beaulieu Autojumble and I was so surprised at the figure that I doublechecked it to make sure there
hadn’t been a mistake. To put some sort of perspective on matters, the same sale saw a showroom-condition 1958 MGA Coupé fetch £24,950 and a Jaguar E-Type sell for £34,500. A few years back, an E-Type, for example, would have been regarded as infinitely more valuable than any light
commercial. So, this is good news, eh? Classic light commercials are fetching really big dough, which raises the profile of our particular segment of the classic scene and, perhaps, raises the profile of CVP. No, it isn’t good news, at all. Am I crazy because, come on, I edit a publication devoted to these vehicles? I don’t think so.