Classic Car Buyer Magazine No.191 'Eighties Morgans Back Issue

One thing that has become clear to me in the year (give or take a couple of weeks) that I’ve been on
the CCB team is that the desirability of a classic car often has very little to do with how it stacks up
as a piece of automotive engineering. When I was driving the Vauxhall Viva that featured in last week’s issue, I kept trying to find a reason why cars with the Griffin badge from the ’Seventies are
so overlooked while those with the Blue Oval from the same period have such a fervent enthusiast
following. After three hours behind the wheel I didn’t have the answer. After thinking about it for a bit,
I realised that the answer was down to more than simply how good the car was as a machine. As a fan of both British Leyland and Citroën products, I am more than familiar with cars that are marvellous technical achievements but that failed to capture the public’s imagination. That an Austin 1800 is superior to a MkII Ford Cortina from a technical point of view can’t be disputed, but that’s not the point. The ‘Landcrab’ was never desirable. While BMC offered lots of space, advanced suspension and front-wheel drive, Ford created the 1600E, which came with a peppy engine, extra dials, plush seats and some badges, to tell everyone what you were driving. This was backed up with superb advertising, with the result that the Ford was the car people wanted to drive and to be seen in. That has an effect on the classic car scene as well – how many of us buy classics because we coveted the cars when they were new? Put simply, Ford was better at generating enthusiasts for
its cars than Vauxhall was, and that’s reflected in the following (and prices!) of the cars today.
Whichever make of classic tickles your fancy, we should have it covered in this issue of Classic
Car Buyer. In a bit of a change from a Viva estate, I’ve been driving an Aston Martin DB7, which
threw up some surprises.