What Makes a Classic Car?

The term “classic” is largely subjective. Not only when applied to cars, either. There are wide variations in what people consider classics. For example, the film The Shawshank Redemption was fairly widely ignored when it initially came out, but today it is considered one of the finest pieces of film making to come out of Hollywood. Although the term “classical music” now applies to a certain style of music, along the lines of Tchaikovsky and Beethoven in the past and the likes of Michael Nyman and Philip Glass in this era, there are many who would argue for the albums of the Beatles and some of their contemporaries, and indeed even a band as current as Radiohead, being eligible for the pantheon of “classic albums”. 

When it comes to cars, an equal debate exists over what makes a classic. You could ask several different people, even automobile enthusiasts, what they consider to make a classic car, and get wildly varying answers. It may apply to a car which was the pre-eminent example of engineering for its era. It could equally apply to a car that was seen as an important innovation in its time, making it possible for the automotive industry to move forward and create the archetypes of modern automobiles. Still others might say that a classic car was any example of engineering that stood out as being of literary or historical renown – driven by a famous figure in the arts or by a statesman of some repute. And again there may be a case for a car that stood out as something different in an era where the fashion was for conformity. 

By those standards, a classic automobile does not need to be one that was created half a century ago or more. All it needs to be is something that has left a mark upon the field of automotive engineering. Some dictionaries describe the term as applying to a car that is distinguished by elegance, engineering brilliance and high class of workmanship, and stipulates the period between 1925 and 1948 as being the era that qualifies for being a classic. However, when it comes to insuring a car under a “classic car” policy, in some cases it need only be 20 years old. As you may be noticing, the definition of a “classic car” is widely variable. 

Depending on your definition of “classic” – that is, the definition that you feel most accurately covers the range into which classic cars fall – you might consider the General Lee from popular TV series The Dukes of Hazard which itself was a 1969 Dodge Charger to be a classic car. Certainly, anyone in possession of a VW Beetle as made famous by the Herbie movies would feel pretty confident of the classic status of their car. On balance, there are so many competing definitions for the term that anyone who feels they own a classic automobile could at least attempt to make a case for their defence. It is a title more of consensus than of absolutism.