It’s all about trust…

Owning a classic car involves a lot of trust. There is the trust in the industry, such as places like this very site, where you can interact and transact with a high level of trust. Then there are the garages and restorers, that we all feel better in using with a bit of trust in place. But there is one other thing we need trust in, and it’s often the hardest thing to negotiate with. Your car. 

Now, this may speak volumes about the ‘quality’ of the vehicles I have owned over the years, but I also believe it will resonate with some, if not all of you reading this. Trusting one’s car is arguably the most crucial part of classic car ownership. If you don’t trust your car, then you won’t be willing to drive it. If you’re not willing to drive it, then what’s the point? This is what comes of building a relationship with a car. As Clarkson said as part of an interview for Eric Bana’s brilliant ode to the car, Love the Beast, “People like you or I know, we have this unshakable belief that cars are living entities. You can develop a relationship with a car. And that’s something non-car people don’t get.” 

It’s because of that relationship that trust comes into play. In the case of one of my cars, it let me down a fair few times. The restoration wasn’t exactly easy, and when it was finally on the road, it snapped a driveshaft and all the electricity fell out more than once. When it once again hit the road last month, there was a lack of trust. I took it on a reasonably long jaunt, however, and as a result I now trust it more than ever. Because of that, the whole ownership experience is so, so much better. 

We, as enthusiasts, also love to work on our own cars. But that brings with it the need to trust ourselves. Have you ever done a lot of work to your car, only to find a full Attenborough-astounding range of butterflies within your stomach? You don’t do that with a modern, generic car. If I change my brakes, or service, or do anything else to my C Max, I finish the job and then give it no further thought. My old Citroën, however – the first drive after mechanical surgery was filled with anxiety.

Weird. But this is what happens with old cars, largely through the bond we build with them. There usually isn’t a bond with the car full of computers and flashing lights, and because of that, we don’t feel a need to trust them as much, or trust the work we do to them. They’re just things. If they fail, we’ll sort it out after the fact. We don’t care in the same way we might with an old Rover P6. 

Basically, we take the health and wellbeing of our classics somewhat personally, and that’s why we need to build trust in them. We think of them as souls, as entities that are aware of what’s going on and what we’re doing to them. They’re not, of course. They’re lumps of metal, oil and rubber. But in our heads, they are more. Far more. We respect them, we care for them and like a person we want to look after them. I think the need to trust them comes from our fear of letting them down. If my classic car fails, I have failed. But more importantly, I have failed the car. 

Trust is also something we need to strive to maintain. Without it, our cars won’t be used, the won’t be enjoyed and much like mine was while it was broken, they become something of an emotional drain. Since putting some miles on my car, I have opted to take a more pragmatic approach of simply driving it at any given opportunity. If something breaks, implodes, explodes or falls off, I’ll deal with it then. Until then, I’m going to trust it. I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to use my trust in it to motivate me to do more, to go further and to have more fun with it. Everybody wins that way.