negative equity in the classic car world?

you can make grain alcohols from bio mass just as easily as you can squeeze the oil out of it. i don't personally think vegetables are are saviour anyway, its just not viable in any shape or form in line our current carbon consumption.

I had a similar thought about usuability when my pal was selling his tidy 1989 635csi, it seemed nearly impossible to find a buyer and eventually he sold it for next to nothing just to get rid of it.

At first I couldn't understand why it had been such a struggle to sell such a "cool" car but when I gave it some thought I realised that other than it looking cool what use was it to anyone looking for a toy. I figured that most people looking for an old BMW would be looking for something like a M3/5 or perhaps something vaguely practical.

I assume the same applys for most areas of the classic car world, it has to be fun or have a purpose.

Running out of petrol won't be an issue.
Having old cars banned from being driven due to emissions might become an issue in the next decade or two, if things keep going the way they are!
Certainly in the EU, there seems to be a significant appetite for banning old vehicles that don't meet a certain emissions level. They've already started with old diesels in certain city centres, this could eventually be expanded to the whole of Europe and include old petrol engines as well. This will very quickly force a huge number of cars off the road, if it happens.

But if the emissions laws kill off all the pre-classic retro cars, there won't be any future classics!

i can see both sides to the above point though.

in the 60s and 70s, cars were rotten at as little as 5 years old. there were loads of cars in the scrap yard at 10 years old with nothing wrong with them other then requiring a little welding. back then, welding gear was either much more expensive, much more primitive, or both, so to the average joe back then it was as big a hurdle as electronics failures are now. cars are still being scrapped at round the same age, arguably longer, but for totally different reasons.

just because kids these days play on GTA or whatever rather than pushing toy cars round and building model kits donest mean they don't have any interest in cars. theres still the coming of age/rite of passage thing of getting your first car, and the associated freedoms and experiences that come with it, that will send this current generation misty-eyed like their parents and grandparents were over mk1 escorts or 100Es or whatever.

whether that will translate into fiesta RS models and other lusted-after sporty models of whatever cars kids are getting these days becoming collectors items is another question, but that consumerist throwaway society is exactly what is driving up the price of surviving examples of fairly mundane 70s and 80s cars.

the other thing is, counter-culture is growing. i see and know a lot of younger people trying not to live their lives in the consumerist ways their parents have, and getting back to simpler pleasures and pastimes, and that includes classic cars that can be fixed at home.