‘Mindboggling’ red tape threatens classic car industry, owners warn

A village fete is seldom comprehensive without an array of vintage cars parked on the grass for motoring fans to admire. But now historic car homeowners are warning the switch to electrification and the red tape ensuing from Brexit threaten the survival of enterprises that keep these classic vehicles on the road. 

The vintage car sector has shaped a new team, the Historic and Vintage Automobiles Alliance (HCVA), to secure an market it states has an yearly turnover of £18.3bn and both employs or supports some 113,000 jobs, including engineers, restorers, craftsmen and components suppliers.

HCVA estimates there is a fleet of some one.54m historic vehicles, described as people in excess of 30 years outdated, on Uk roads. There are a additional one.47m classic cars, which are aged 15 to 30 years outdated, bringing the complete benefit of these vehicles to £12.6bn.

Even with their outdated-fashioned engineering, these cars are fewer polluting than envisioned as they are pushed so seldom, masking an common one,200 miles a yr over the average of sixteen occasions they are pushed, a portion of the 7,000 miles most cars go over.