On what does makes a Vintage Thing

A Vintage Thing? Or not a Vintage Thing? That is the question.

The best Vintage Things are obvious. They are high performance cars and motorbikes that are either rare or look great, an engineer or designer's dream come true. It's a very simple definition but occasionally I like something just because it's odd.

And I'm often surprised by what I stumble across and get enthusiastic about. And some of the Vintage Things have been dangerously close to the kinds of vehicles I have come to despise. See what doesn't make a Vintage Thing.what doesn't make a Vintage Thing.

During my teens, I went through a passing phase of drawing multi-purpose vehicles. I drew them everywhere and got into trouble at school for doing so. I didn't break windows or smoke, I just filled my rough book with drawings.

At the time, I felt particularly inspired by buses and coach designs from the 1950s and early 60s. I was exploring a different kind of aesthetic. I don't think I really ever found it but I enjoyed chasing it around. I was also interested in ex-Army vehicles around this time and had my own 1:76 scale army of Airfix kits that consisted mostly of Jeeps and trucks and had hardly any tanks. Some of them were ham-fisted attempts to emulate the vehicles in Gerry Anderson's Super Marionation films like Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet (but often these episodes gave vent to my destructive streak and my models ended up being set on fire). A third influence was fairground vehicles, many of which were ex-military designs artfully rebuilt by showmen for a specific purpose and brightly painted versions of the trucks in my model collection.

I wasn't alone in this obscure interest. One of my mates still likes Scammell Showtrac showman's trucks. He once hatched a plan to make a scaled down version out of an ex-GPO Morris Minor van he had, which had a separate chassis and got as far as doing some preliminary drawings. He worked out all the proportions (the doors were a bit small but this was in the name of art as well as being amotoring joke that only afew of us would get) but was stumped for headlamps until I suggested some from a Citroen 2CV. I reckon it would have looked brilliant and would have done strange things to everyone's spatial relationships if it had ever got built.

My designs were often at least of the size of a Ford Transit and frequently featured four wheel drive, which in the late 70s was still a novelty. Some were specifically camper vans or more accurately living wagons for life on the open road had a definite romance. But they were nothing like today's SUVs and MPVs.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving drawings from this youthful burst of creativity but I recently had a go at recreating them.

This one is based on a Dennis Mace bus but has four wheel drive. I remember be fascinated by all those sliding windows. Were summers really that good? Or was this little bus just very noisy? The original, although preserved, had obviously had a hard life and all the doors didn't really fit properly any more. It reminds me of a railway coach - possibly a retired "camping" coach - that's been shortened given a radiator and put on wheels.

Wilts and Dorset bus company had a highly modified ex-Army AEC Matador 4x4 that they used as a recovery vehicle and this drawing is based on the splendid coachbuilt bodywork this device featured. I had several Matadors in my fleet but never made one as spectacular as this. The more modern grille makes it look a bit like a Merryweather fire engine, another favourite if just for the name. The area where the crane would have been was replaced by a folding tailgate and retractable roof similar to that designed by Brooks Steven for the 1963 Studebaker Wagonaire station wagon. I had a Husky model of one of these. Remember them?

But they didn't all have to be four-wheel-drives. Other MPVs that I designed were low and built for speed. Another of my favourites from those far off days was an AEC Regal IV of Berry's of Taunton. This was built in 1951 and had a design of Bellhouse coachwork known as the Landmaster. This drawing sticks very closely to the original coach design and shows what possibilities were offered by the innovation of an underfloor engine. I'd love to know who the individual was behind this design. My drawing also reminds me of the buses that showmen used to operate. They were almost as glamorous as the rides they serviced and had a living area and panelled in windows with a storage area inside. Without the perpendicular lines of the window frames, and the sometimes awkward angles of the glass surfaces, they looked so much sleeker.

I was once offered an early Ford Transit minibus for next to nothing. It needed welding but had a V4 engine. I was quite tempted initially but this was tempered by the discovery that it wouldn't fit through the door to my garage. My girlfriend thought having it would be a great idea because she'd had such fun in one with a gang of friends. I understood what she meant. When I was at school we'd get travelling theatre groups visiting us in Transit vans. Creative types could never be drawn in such a way to a Nissan Prairie or a Vauxhall Zafira. Remember the Griff Rhys Jones advert for the Zafira? "We've not left any space under the bonnet becasue it's all inside where you can use it" except that the engine bays so cramped they're sods to work on.

The Transit minibus eventually went to a family owned coach company who painted it up to look like one then founder of the firm had run and I think it found a better home with them.

Basic trucks or tractors don't appeal to me so much. I can appreciate their engineering but they are more often pieces of industrial equipment, tools without any sense of specialness about them. I suppose they could be Vintage Things simply because of the loyal service they give but there needs to be something else about them -- a sense of fun or occasion, an intent for having a good time -- for them to be a "proper job" Vintage Thing. Some people can create a special out of the most unlikely material, though, and then that person's vision, when realised in metal, can make a great Vintage Thing.

At some point, I lost interest in the lifestyle four-wheel drives. The first Range Rovers certainly appeal to me but once they grew five doors instead of the original three I didn't like them so much. It's all those vertical shut lines for the doors and the smaller windows. Too many doors and vertical lines and you've got something that looks like it's standing still while doing 100mph. The first ones looked so much more sporty, much more sporty than today's Range Rover Sports look.

These just look ridiculous to me but an early Range Rover has a purity of purpose, an air of breaking new ground in many different senses and the pleasant feeling of surprise that the Not-Terribly-Good-Club-of-Great Britain actually came up with a world beater. This world beater has since been copied, made more complicated, bigger, heavier, faster but less efficient and less fun. They've been turned into put downs to less-affluent people and, to my perhaps rather jaundiced view, SUVs represent the worst sort of enthusiasm - the one that's at the expense of others. SUV drivers don't want to share anything with you.

And MPVs are too pretty inside. Stick an 8 by 4 sheet of galvanised sheet inside one and you'd ruin the interior. A Transit is versatile because it's purpose is less clearly defined. It's more of an MPV than an MPV, which is often full of seats and plastic storage "solutions" that take up the room that an 8 x 4 sheet needs. And many of them don't have that aesthetic quality that I was searching for, the "Wow!" that makes you take a second look. I am convinced that some of them have been deliberately "destyled" to make them look more "worthy" but of what I haven't a clue.

Having said that, one 4x4 MPV that does appeal to me is the Renault Scenic RX4. For many years, there was nothing like the Renault Megane Scenic in terms of a mid-sized MPV. That, in itself, does not qualify to be a Vintage Thing but what transformed this vehicle's standing in my eyes was the transformation into the RX4, a four-wheel-drive version with slightly increased ground clearance and, typically, a metallic interpretation of olive drab paint. The four-wheel-drive system meant that the spare wheel had to live outside on the back door and there were plastic wing defenders that gave it a chunkier look. The lack of a low ratio box hampered the RX4's off-road performance and the extra weight meant that it wasn't particularly fast or handled any better but for me the aesthetic changes really worked.

My mate Andrew - the one with all the tractors - summed things up pretty well for me the other day. We were driving along in his Land Rover with a tractor in tow on his trailer and the conversation turned to what sort of vehicle he might be persuaded to trade his TD5 in for. It wasn't long before it became obvious that only another Land Rover or possibly a Range Rover or Land Cruiser would fit the bill.

As we drove along the M5 and then the A30, I suggested various SUV alternatives but none of them interested old Andrew. I found his response particularly illuminating.

"None of them are no good much," was how he put it. "There's no low box."

In that short remark he summed up what I had been feeling for years. Without a low box in yer transmission you can't tow trailers effectively and yer off road performance is severely restricted.

It's not about lifestyle at all but action.

So, the nature of a Vintage Thing is just like a hot rod. There are many conventions and principles but the number one rule is that there is no rule.

It was on this trip down memory lane that I had something of a revelation. I wasn't designing MPVs at all. I was really designing race car transporters or service vehicles for motorcycle racing. I was making a statement about my own aspirations of the lifestyle I hope to lead, which is just what anyone who buys an MPV or SUV makes today, but one centred on Vintage Things.

Any vehicle is the result of its designer vision. They should all be dreams come true but sometimes they are living nightmares. The vision becomes impaired in some way.

To be a Vintage Thing, the creative dream behind it must be a good one. The designer’s intentions must have been clear, too.

It has to pass the “Wot’ll she do mister?” test. Vintage Things inspire enthusiasm and excitement among others - not envy.

And if you can see a Thunderbird puppet or Captain Scarlet driving it, then it's definitely a Vintage Thing.