I meet a huge number of enthusiasts who manage it, but for me it is nigh-on impossible to own – or to even consider owning – just one classic.
There are all sorts of perfectly sensible reasons they can proffer, of course, such as parking, maintenance and costs – the cash-sapping effect of which I am equally aware of – but many argue simply that they would rather have one car at the top of their budget.
I get that, but it’s not how my brain works.
Whatever my available resources, I have to slice them up into a ‘fleet’ and – putting aside the myriad Lottery win lists – if that means a trio of classics worth £20,000, or a pair with a combined value of just £1000 so be it.
In that respect the best set I ever had was the happy six years-plus with the option of jumping into a four-pot sports car, straight six four-door saloon or a V8 2+2 GT.
Lord knows what the next arrangement will be, but mentally am I am always carefully assembling different potential fleets in my head. And just as often, bizarrely, fleets that I know would never happen in any circumstances.
Sometimes it starts with just one car that I have never owned and would probably never buy and then struggling to work out the ideal stablemate/s for it.
Other times it is restructuring my own fleet.
Sometimes I am spending a max-out Euromillions rollover (first in the garage every time is the short-wheelbase), on other occasions it is – more realistically –how cheaply can I have anything at all that I would be happy with if finances took a turn for the worse.
