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Classic, Vintage and Antique – How Can You Tell?
A decent slice of the driving population isn’t into new cars so much. OK, they might drive newer models to get from A to B and for general bread-and-butter driving. But when they drive for pleasure, they look to the past: to classics, vintages and antiques. Sometimes, you may hear the word “veteran” bandied about.
When we hear the word “vintage” pop into our heads, we usually get mental pictures of something with big goggly headlamps, seriously sprung upholstery, a square top and big mudguards. The Ford Model T would be a prime example. When “classic” is mentioned, mental images get a bit more fluid, with some people thinking about traditional VW Beetles and others picturing big old American numbers. Mention an “antique” car to the person on the street and he or she would probably give you a funny look.
So what makes a classic a classic? What’s the definition of a vintage car? Is it the age or the styling?
A Model T Ford from 1910: an antique or veteran car.
Defining veteran, vintage and antique cars is the easy part. Veteran and Antique cars are the same thing: anything that was made before the end of World War 1 (that’s 1919 for those who don’t remember history lessons from high school). A veteran car is something that was made between the wars, more or less: between 1919 and either 1925 or 1930, depending on which authority you listen to. This means that the classic Beetle just misses out on being a vintage car, as it was first made in 1938. Model T Fords, however, can be veterans or vintages, as they were produced from 1908 to 1927.
1926 Bentley: a vintage car
Defining classics is much harder. Exactly how old a classic has to be to count depends on where you are and who you listen to, with 15 years old, 20 years old, 30 years old and 27–65 years old all being given as the age for a classic by various authorities, clubs and insurance companies. However, there’s more to it than that. A classic car has to have “collectible” quality and to be a true classic, it has to be in original condition.
1961 E-type Jaguar: definitely a classic
Of course, the idea of what is considered “collectible” or desirable will vary from person to person. This is where personal preferences kick in. Obviously, luxury vehicles tend to make the grade (e.g. the E-type Jaguar pictured here). So do a lot of the big American muscle cars of the 1950s. But when it comes to cars that were once your typical family drive, things get a lot more fluid. A classic has to have a lot of sentiment attached to it in some form. It has to be “iconic” in some way. And that’s a quality that’s hard to pin down.
However, it would be fairly safe to list certain older family style vehicles as being sure-fire classics: VW Beetles (as already mentioned), Minis , Kombis, Holden Kingswoods, Ford Cortinas and Fiat 500s would be my picks. I’m sure there are lots more!
Picking what’s going to be a classic in the future is harder, although some enthusiasts have a go at trying to buy up “sleepers” and hanging onto them until they become classics. This is a bit of a gamble, as they may never get that collectable quality to them.
It is usual for articles of this type to suggest lists of future classics. I am not going to attempt this, apart from guessing that the hot sports cars of the 1980s and 1990s (Porsche Boxters , Nissan 350Z Roadsters , Mazda MX-5 , BMW Z4s ) will probably make the grade. However, I will propose a couple of rules of thumb:
- If it was your typical car driven by university students when you were a kid, it will probably be a classic when you’re middle-aged.
- If you drooled over it as the latest luxury car in magazines, car yards and dealers’ windows when you were a kid, it will probably be a classic when you reach retirement.
Happy driving,
Megan
Calm the Farm: Avoiding Road Rage
Road rage is hardly a new phenomenon. Losing one’s temper and exploding at some dimwit who has got in the way of your means of transport doesn’t just pre-date the horseless carriage – it predates the steam engine, sprung suspension and four-wheeled forms of transport. Yep, back when horse- and ox-drawn carts had only two wheels and rivers were the best form of rapid transport, they had road rage. Or, more accurately, river rage. There is an Egyptian tomb painting showing two boatmen having a scrap, presumably after one has cut the other off or rammed the other. Archaeologists translated the hieroglyphics in speech bubbles and found that one of the boatmen is yelling “Take that, you f***er!” at the other.
OK, so it’s human nature to get annoyed when somebody just about takes you out because they were not looking when they were going. However, the authorities these days take a stricter view of having a transport-related punch-up compared to the ancient Egyptians, so how do you avoid road rage?
- Get a decent night’s sleep. This way, you won’t be as irritable and you’re also less likely to make mistakes that annoy other people.
- Plan ahead and allow plenty of time. If you do everything in a rush at the last minute, little things that slow you down or cause delays are going to get on your wick even more. What’s more, being late and in a rush gets your adrenaline going – the “fight or flight” chemical. You’re practically priming yourself for aggro. So allow extra time for your journey and don’t stress yourself out.
- Everybody has the same road rights, whether they drive a big-engined HSV Senator or a frugal little Suzuki Swift. However, cars have different limitations. OK, so that old clunker hasn’t whipped into a gap in the traffic at the intersection that you would have taken. This is possibly because said old clunker doesn’t have the quick acceleration of your car and the driver knows it. So don’t honk your horn. If you were going up a flight of stairs somewhere public and you were held up by an elderly person going a bit slow, you probably wouldn’t yell at Grandpa/Grandma for not going any faster. Have the same sort of consideration behind the wheel.
- Remember that L-plates and even P-plates mean “young and inexperienced driver who is likely to stuff things up, take things slow or do something unexpected”. You’re the adult, so act like one.
- Be a courteous driver. If you avoid sudden lane changes, tailgating or cutting people off, you’re less likely to tick other drivers off and get yourself on the receiving end of road rage. Look both ways before turning out of an exit before you move not while you move. And, for goodness’ sake, don’t text and drive! It’s illegal for one thing and it does make you less aware of what other drivers are doing. Even if you do have blind spot sensors, crash avoidance systems and all the other safety features that you get on the latest models.
- If someone does come storming up to your car swearing blue streak and waving fists around, apologise and admit you were wrong if you were wrong. Female drivers have the non-PC but effective option of getting tearful when menaced by an angry male driver. Forgive me, women’s rights campaigners, but this one did work for me once. Stay in your car and don’t rise to any provocation.
- Give the other driver the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps that driver who seems to be up your exhaust pipe or who cut you off in a huge hurry is a doctor who’s had an emergency callout or is a parent who’s got a call from the school to say that their child is badly hurt. Perhaps the person who’s weaving all over the place has a wasp in the car. Perhaps the person who is going slower than the speed limit is from out of town and doesn’t have a navigation system, and is trying to read the road signs; or perhaps they’re taking something sloppy and sticky to a potluck dinner and don’t want to spill it by fast acceleration, cornering and braking.
Happy driving,
Megan
How To Turn Your Car Into An Oven
Car engines produce a lot of waste heat. It’s one of the basic laws of thermodynamics that energy will change from one form to another, and as not all the chemical potential energy in the petrol or diesel that you put into your tank gets turned into kinetic (motion) energy. Some becomes sound energy and some becomes heat energy. In the normal course of things, a lot of this heat energy gets wasted.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can do something useful with that heat. The most common thing that people do with this head is using it to heat the inside of the car. But you can also use that heat produced by your engine to cook a meal. They say that this is as old as the internal combustion engine, and it’s probably older than that, as I guess the drivers of steam trains probably boiled a kettle or baked spuds on the fire that boiled the water to power the train. Heck, the hordes of Genghis Khan used to shove a steak under the saddle while galloping across the steppes, meaning that it was nice and tender and ready to eat come the end of the day (but they ate raw meat).
I will have to say at the outset that I haven’t actually tried this – yet. There have certainly been moments, though, when it’s been tempting, especially on those hectic days when there’s a billion things to do and pick up, lots of driving to do and a potluck dinner to get to.
You have to pick the right sort of thing to cook. It has to be something that isn’t too big and that can be cooked adequately while wrapped up in tinfoil. Good old sausages work well. So do whole fish and corn on the cob. You could possibly give chicken drums a go, but you’d have to have a long drive to make sure that they’re cooked adequately.
You have to wrap what you’re cooking up thoroughly in tinfoil to stop any fumes getting into your food and tainting it. While some smoky flavours are delicious and desirable, petrol and diesel smoke isn’t quite so tasty. The other thing is that you don’t want the juices from your food getting into your engine and stuffing it up. So use several layers of tinfoil.
You will need to secure your tightly wrapped package to the engine block so you don’t lose your dinner when you hit a bump. Use metal wire. Don’t let your packet interfere with any moving parts.
Here’s a sample fish recipe to get you started.
- 1 medium sized fish, cleaned and scaled
- oil or butter
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 or 2 carrots, cut into rounds or julienne strips
- mushrooms (as many as you like), washed
- tabasco sauce, lemon wedges and chopped parsley to serve
Place the fish on several layers of tinfoil. Lightly coat the fish inside and out with oil or butter, then season with salt and pepper. Arrange the sliced carrots and mushrooms around and on top of the fish. Wrap very securely in the tinfoil and secure the package to the engine block.
Drive home for half an hour or so. Every time you get stuck at a busy intersection, console yourself with how the extra cooking time will make the fish beautifully tender. When you get home, remove the packet from the engine block. For goodness sake, protect your hands. Peek inside the packet and check that the flesh of the fish is white and flaky. If it is, your fish is cooked! Enjoy your dinner with all the garnishes and sauces.
There are tons of websites and books on this topic if you have a look around. Engine block cooking is bound to appeal to those pushed for time, those with a taste for survival techniques and those who have a bit of a thrifty streak to them.
The Big Desert: Toyota Land Cruiser Sahara.
Australian tv broadcast, in the mid 1970s, a program called Aunty Jack. The spoken theme song featured the lyrical lines: “Though you’re ten feet tall” and “You’re big, bold and tough”, lines appropriate for Toyota’s evergreen behemoth Land Cruiser. The Sahara sits at the top of the 
Land Cruiser family tree, complete with brawny 4.6L petrol V8 (or 4.5L V8 diesel), DVD player and the legendary off road capability, backed up with some hidden modern tech. Is the legend still legendary? A Wheel Thing took the beast bush to find out.
The Donk.
The numbers look good with 227kw @5500 rpm while max torque is 439Nm @3400. These numbers don’t: 2665 followed by kilograms. Then there’s 13.6/18.4/10.9L per 100 kilometres of travel for combined/urban/highway. Although a double over head cam and alloy head setup is in situ, sitting underneath is an old school iron block. It’s a mix of good and not so. Transmission is a six speed auto, a fluid and smooth shifter.
The Suit.
If one were to put the current 200 series ‘Cruiser next to the original from the ’50s, there’d be little to draw a line of resemblance from then until now, yet, throughout its evolution, Toyota’s design team has managed to keep the new model close to the one or two before. The 80 series launched the rounded, organic look to be found in the 200 series, ditching the rectangular dual headlight for a more squared off style in the 100 series and returning to a integrated dual setup plus sunbright LED DRLs as a base for the assembly in the 200. The rear of the Sahara shows off a horizontal split rear door, upper half electrically activated via the keyfob and a soft fall mechanism for the lower. It’s the edgy, somewhat protuberant, tail light extension that shows the move from the slimline and integrated set found in the 80/100 series. Front and rear, under the bumpers, can be found four tow hook mounting points. In profile, the extended, smooth wheel arches bracket a subtle crease at door’s base, highlighted by a chrome strip. There’s sidesteps, front and rear mounted cameras for parking assistance, tilting wing mirrors when reversing and chunky bumpers front and rear. Toyota have stayed with the ladder chassis for the ‘Cruiser, which goes somewhat to explaining the weight of the vehicle. Size? Huge. Call it five metres long, with cose to two metres total width and 1.9 in height. Maximum wading depth is rated at 70 cm and approach/departure angles are thirty and twenty degrees respectively
On The Inside.
Unsurprisingly, there’s more room on the inside than the TARDIS….almost. A full five seater, complete with fold out seats in the cavernous cargo section to make it an eight seater, a centre console coolbox, leather clad heated/vented front seats (via two push and twirl knobs front left of the gear lever), full rear aircon with roof vents, roof mounted DVD screen (player is in the front console), touchscreen navitainment with 
AM/FM/DAB, sunroof, electric steering column and memory seating. There’s a flourish from the dash LCD screen on startup with a big Land Cruiser logo coming up in stylised silver grey and blue back lit Land Cruiser logos in the front door sills.
The radio screen is somewhat busy, suffering from a messy layout and the map screen refused to stay away for more than ten seconds after the audio buton was pressed. Annoying, also, is the procedure to access audio for the DVD then have music for the non headphone wearing passengers. It’s a multistep and complicated process, plus the audio through the speakers doesn’t shut off once the vehicle’s transmission is put into Drive. Safety fail. The 
digital receiver provides crsip clear sound, however is still limited by the DAB broadcast range.
The third row seating is folded up to the sides, allowing plenty of floor and cargo space, but they do rattle over the slightest of bumps.
There’s a mix of woodgrain and piano black plastics at the front, a comfortable mix however the impression is anything but yelling luxury. Sure, the seats are comfortable and supportive, allowing the body to feel rested rather than exhausted after a trip, the overall ambience just doesn’t feel luxury like. As is the norm nowadays, there’s airbags everywhere, Bluetooth, USB and auxiliary inputs.
On the Road.
The Sahara rolls on 18 inch wheels, not huge, however the rubber is. 285 width and sixty profile allows for both plenty of footprint and sidewall flex, contributing to the quality ride, almost wafting along, despatching small bumps and undulations to the Do Not Care bin. Until you wish to turn, that is. Plenty of planning is required, as the steering ratio allows some latitude before the front end barges its way through a turn, feeling the sideways flex somewhat when pushed. Planning is also required for stopping; with some 3000 kilos of mass the brakes do a reasonable job in hauling up the beast, but there’s not a lot of alacrity in doing so.
Off road, well, I have to say the feel was skittish, uncertain, on the track used (in New South Wales, the track to the Glowworm Tunnel, east of Lithgow), with the surface a hard,compacted gravel/clay mix. The ‘Cruiser was prone to tramlining at moderate speed, requiring constant 
monitoring of the handling. I never felt 100% certain of where the car was going but, once into proper off road sections and in low range using the grunt of the engine and the technology, it all came together. Until one particular unassuming part of puddled road had the ‘Cruiser stuck on its chassis. A wait of twenty minutes until one bloke stopped, tried his snatch strap, tried his chain, neither worked. A second group showed and both used their winches. A heartfelt thank you, gents.
In Summation.
It’s a big vehicle and it comes with a big thirst, with an average of around 18L/100km. No wonder the primary tank is 93 litres and the auxiliary is over 40L. It’s a big cost, with over $122K (driveaway) attached to the Sahara name plate. There’s plenty of manners on road and there’s little to doubt in regards to its off road credibility. For me, the Sahara Land Cruiser is somewhat out of place; the interior isn’t particularly luxurious, the off road ability it possesses is largely shared by its lesser (and cheaper) brethren, plus they’d be more likely to be used in a dirt environment. There’s also little doubt that the Sahara does have a market, someone like the better financed farmer that needs something capable of handling a soggy paddock without a thought but doesn’t need the interior of, say, a Range Rover or a well to do family in suburbia that isn’t ostentatious, eschewing a BMW or M-B four wheel drive.
It IS, however, a nameplate that has survived over sixty years and one that Toyota is rightly proud of.
Go here: http://www.toyota.com.au/landcruiser-200#lc200-flythrough for details.
Range: Toyota Land Cruiser Sahara.
Engine: 4.6L petrol V8, 4.5L diesel V8 (option).
Power/Torque: 227kW @5500 rpm, 439Nm @ 3400rpm (petrol).
Fuel: 91RON petrol.
Tank: 93L (main), 45L (auxiliary).
Fuel Consumption: 13.6L/100km Combined, 10.9L/100km Highway, 18.4L/100km Urban.
Weight: 2665kg dry, gross vehicle mass 3300kg.
Dimensions: 4990mm x 1970mm x 1905mm (Length, width, height).
Wheelbase: 2850mm.
Off road specifications: wading depth 700mm, approach angle @ 30 degrees, departure angle @ 20 degrees.
Cargo volume: 1276L.
Warranty: Three years/100, 000 kms (whichever comes first).
Wheels/Tyres: 285/60V/18.
Safety: airbags for front passengers, (front, knee and side), curtain airbags (front, mid, rear seats).
Level 2, 9 Help Street