Have you ever tried to compile a list of your all-time top 10 classics? I know that I’ve given it a go on several occasions, and each time I’ve come up with a slightly different selection. That is why, on the list of cars that I’d buy if I ever won big on the lottery, there were always one or two that were allocated temporary status, occupying slots that I could change on a regular basis. The idea behind this was that I could then sample more of my dream cars without the overall collection growing too unwieldy and to the point that there were not enough days in the week to enjoy them all.
We’ve had a similar problem with this feature, and that’s despite doubling our car count to include 20 top classics. The thing is, how do you pick just 20 cars from the many hundreds of potential options? Quite simply, it is an impossible task. So we have put a few ground rules in place to help limit the options. Firstly, you will notice that we have called it 20 Top Classics, and not The Top 20 Classics. The difference between them may be subtle, but it is important because we are not claiming that this is a definitive list of the best classics, merely that each of them is a super choice. So while you may compile a different iist of your own, that does not negate our choices, it merely reflects different tastes.
Semantics aside, we have also factored in some other rules to help with our selection. Firstly, we have studiously avoided any of the models chosen for the Top Ten Classics feature we ran in the October 2022 issue. In case you were wondering, that is why cars such as the Morris Minor, Citroën 2CV and Jaguar E-Type have not been included. We have also insisted on all cars qualifying for Historic status with the DVLA, not because we don’t regard any newer cars as classics, but because that gives us an arbitrary and independent cutoff date of 1983.
You will notice that we have also given a value to each of our chosen candidates. Again we have used an independent arbiter for this - Hagerty’s online valuation tool at www.hagerty.co.uk/valuation/tool. No price list is ever going to be 100% accurate as values change all the time, so we fully recognise that you may be able to find cars both cheaper and more expensive than the prices we’ve quoted, but they should at least be consistent and in the right ball park.
In fact we’ve given two values for each car. The cheaper one is what Hagerty describe as being for cars in FAIR condition, which in their words means: The more expensive price point is for what Hagerty call
