"Whenever one reads about 'vintage' cars one usually takes it with a pinch of salt as the term is so often used to cover any car made before about 1980. The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain defines 'veteran' as a car made up to World War One. The Vintage Sports Car Club of Great Britain defines 'vintage' as being any car made from WWI up to the end of 1930. It defines 'post vintage' as 1931 to 1940. That leaves 'classic' as cars made after World War Two but with no end date. I think that needs rectifying and would suggest a cut off for classics as 1959. After that date I have no thoughts but would welcome those of others.
John Bates
Editor: thanks for your notes John. However you should understand this webmagazine is not meant specificly for UK. It is meant to connect old car fans worldwide. The readership is primarily USA, UK, Western-Europe, Australia, New Zealand and some 80 more countries. The meaning of words like antique, classic, vintage, pre-war and more etcetera is different depending of which part of the world you live in. You may know that in the USA the wording 'classic car' is preserved for a certain group well defined cars (see website of the Classic Car Club of America). And yes the word vintage has another meaning as well. Think of 'Late bottled Vintage Port' , a phrase which doies not go back further than 1964. A vintage Mustang is a well respected expression, even though not acceptable to your eyes. Having said that an international classification of car age categories is simpel when you would only refer to twenties, thirties, fifties, sixties, etcetera. Finally the expression 'pre-war' has a different meanings depending on your age and location. Too older car afficionados a pre-war car is a car built before WWI . And if this is not the case, WWII started in different years depending on where you lived, starting with the german invasion of Poland in 1939 and last th e USA in December 1941. In other words, there's more under the sun... Looking forward to hear any additonal views. JB
(photo shwowing our recently acquired undated Talbot M75 Saloon, is it vintage or post-vintage?)