What is a classic car?

With cars from the early 80's coming up for 25 years old now, this is a question that keeps coming up. Cars from this era are the early consumer cars, with ECUs and ABS, comfortable, reliable, economical and kind of soulless, really. My daily driver, a 55 plate Toyota Corolla, ticks all of these boxes. It's a nice car to drive, but only inasmuch as it's effortless and doesn't detract from the purpose of the journey. The enjoyment comes when you get to B, not necessarily in the drive from A to B. Although a good song on the stereo helps.

Because of this, there is an arguement that early 80's cars aren't 'classic' cars. Here in the UK in the mid 90's, cars 25 years or older became exempt from road tax. This was frozen in 1997, when the current Labour government came to power, and now only cars built before 1973 (I think) are exempt. There is a call to restore this 25 year exemption, and herein lies the rub. In 2007, 25 year old cars tend to be in better condition than in years gone by. So there are more 25 year old common or garden consumer cars around, which many people would not consider classics. Having said that, the throwaway consumer society means that older consumer cars are being scrapped before they're truly worn out, as the cost of replacing expensive components is more than the value of the car.

There is an element of agism, in that an Austin 1100 is more likely to be considered a classic than a Metro, but both are small family cars. My TR7 wouldn't be considered a classic by some owners of earlier TRs. On this page of his 1941 Buick restoration, Matt laments the scarcity of '40s cars at American classics shows, being underwhelmed by 'ordinary' cars from the '50, '60s and '70s. But then his Buick wouldn't have been considered a classic in the '40s.

To me, 'classic' is a bit of a cliche. A better word would be 'cherished', in that a cherished car is a car used and maintained for the love of the car itself. Of course this definition includes chavved-up Corsas, so for older cars (say 25-30 years old) I'd favour the term 'historic'.

And tax exemption? For purely selfish reasons (my TR7 is 26 years old), I support the 25 year cutoff being restored, but maybe the cutoff date only changing every 5 years or so.