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L ooking back on my earliest years of motoring I can now say with hindsight that I have been extremely lucky. Not in terms of my first car; no, unfortunately I’m not one of those classic car fans that comes from a family of dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, and while I’m sure my parents meant well in picking out for me an almost brand-new at the time Vauxhall Corsa as my first motor, I would’ve much preferred something like the Triumph Toledo I’m pottering about in today. No, when I say I’m lucky, I mean that my extremely generous parents footed the bill for my first three years’ worth of insurance premiums. Insuring a car was an expensive business for a young driver ten years ago – never mind today – and one which, as you’ll discover on page five of this week’s issue, is one that is keeping more and more younger drivers from driving at all. The plight of the younger driver is one that I should identify with but don’t – as I said, I’ve been been very lucky – but it’s encouraging to learn nonetheless that the classic car movement can be a force for good in terms of getting youngsters motoring. Of course, it’s not just younger classic car owners that have to keep an eye on the pennies; all enthusiasts are being affected by the rising value of classic cars in general. You’ll see in this week’s extensive five-page coverage of what’s going on in the auctions world that sales in America last month resulted in no less than 50 records for prices of cars sold broken, not least with a Ferrari 275GTB/42 fetching an eye-watering £17.6m and becoming the most valuable road car ever sold under the hammer in the process. That’s why in this week’s news pages you’ll also find details of some of the most affordable British classics you can buy today, from a ’Sixties Morris Minor 1000 to a ’Seventies Austin Maxi and an ’Eighties Ford Cortina.