Vintage and classic car shows offer an opportunity to often spot a good buy and initiate discussions.

The trend of getting enthused by older cars really began in the 1930s as motor enthusiasts saw Henry Ford-inspired mass-produced cars as soul-less. 'Proper motor cars' were hand-built and English clubs laid down the following categories: Pre-1919 models were Edwardian, pre-1931 were Vintage and a few car models produced upto the beginning of World War II were loosely termed as Post-Vintage Thoroughbreds.

Later, people began to use the term 'classic' to describe a variety of cars from a 1927 Bentley to a 1967 Ferrari. But the definition is anything but well accepted. The American Classic Car Club defines them as cars built between 1925 and 1948 having sports or special bodies and built in limited numbers. But what constitutes a classic car is vague even today.

India does not have too many cars that qualify as classics in the international sense and we are compelled to have our own definition of the term, otherwise vintage and classic car events would have hardly any entrants.

The Mumbai-based Vintage and Classic Car Club of India (VCCCI) specifies cars built from 1900 till 1939 as vintage cars and from 1946 till the '60s as classics. So do most of the other Indian clubs. A better way would be classify cars (except those made in India, such as the Fiats, Ambassadors and Standard Heralds) between 1946 and 1960 as Indian classics and from 1961 till 1969 as modern classics.

But the definition of a classic is not the last word on the desirability of a car. Some automobiles that will never be classics or milestones are highly collectible and even good investment today, especially taking our special circumstances into consideration. Unlike vintage cars that are expensive and cannot be driven everyday, 'classics' are cars that are both more affordable and driveable. Classic cars are repairable, unlike vintage and veteran cars, and are not too old to be part of people's memory.