I was flicking through a classic car magazine and it mentioned that Renault 5's are rare now, that got me thinking that it doesnt seem all that long ago that the roads were full of them but you never see them now. Same thing with Skoda Estelle's - they used to be everywhere but when was the last time you saw one?

It's a different world today... 20 or more years ago, one kept an old car running simply because he/she couldn't afford a new one, and there wasn't that much difference between old and new cars, if the old one had been well kept.

Nowadays, the progress car makers have made in the fields of safety, fuel consumption, pollution and general comfort are dramatic, and new cars are not only better on the average, but also cheaper to run, pay less taxes and insurance, and it's much easier to buy one on credit, that's why, methinks, you don't see many old jalopies around anymore, it's indeed unusual to see a car that's over 10 years old, these days.

So they became "classic cars", a concept that's gone a bit overboard, if you ask me...

A couple of years ago, I sold my 1970 Fiat 500, in quite a sorry state, for 2500 quid... that's just about the same value of my current car, a 12 year old VW Golf, a bit weather-beaten on the outside but otherwise perfect, and with a "mere" 50.000 Km done.

That sounds a bit silly, doesn't it? But I must admit I've kept that 500 in a lockup for the previous 15 years or so because my dad and I wanted to do the same, restore it and... well, in the end that was the point that made me sell it... what on Earth was I going to do with it? It's a nice hobby, I guess, but I already have quite a few others