v8hgt
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Recently I have been debating what to do with my Mustang. Obviously 2020 has been a very strange year with most of us doing far fewer miles in cars. However it has shown us that we don't need to commute anywhere near as much as we used to.
I get the feeling that the future of office work will be changed forever. Even when we are all immunised against the current strain of Covid my business will be maybe in the office 1 or 2 days a week in future instead of 5.
Also with the UK government brining forward the end of new ICE date to 2030, I can easily imagine that they will become increasing keen to get old ICE off the road using tax hikes on road tax and fuel. It will soon become uneconomic to have a 5 litre V8. Now sure if you have a million pound classic Ferrari then you can probably afford the once annual trip to Goodwood FoS. But if you are a normal person with a £30K ford, you aren't going to be able to afford £10K a yr road tax and £10 per litre tax on fuel. Therefore my initial idea of keeping my Mustang forever and passing it down to my kids isn't going to be financially viable for me or them.
This leaves me with a choice:
1. Stop using the Mustang as a summer toy, start using it all yr round. Get rid of my winter banger volvo. Drive the thing and put miles on it before it becomes a financial burden to own something fun. Assume depreciation down to zero over 10 yrs from now.
2. Sell it now while it still has some value. In 10 yrs time, even its been garaged its entire life and has only 20K miles, it will be effectively worthless (as per option 1), not a usable classic like a (BEV converted) Morris Minor, not a valuable classic like an original Ferrari 250.
3. Continue using the mustang as a fair weather car and SORN it over winter to save costs. However with post Covid commuting being reduced my annual milage will drop massively and I can see myself only doing maybe 2000-3000 miles per yr. So big chunk of cash in the garage and expense per yr for so few fun miles. Motorbike may be a better option or a genuine old classic that attracts no road tax.
Has anyone else been thinking along similar lines? I know Harrys Garage on YouTube did a piece on this recently, but Harry M was talking about expensive old classic stuff mainly and he is rather wealthy. What about us average people?
I get the feeling that the future of office work will be changed forever. Even when we are all immunised against the current strain of Covid my business will be maybe in the office 1 or 2 days a week in future instead of 5.
Also with the UK government brining forward the end of new ICE date to 2030, I can easily imagine that they will become increasing keen to get old ICE off the road using tax hikes on road tax and fuel. It will soon become uneconomic to have a 5 litre V8. Now sure if you have a million pound classic Ferrari then you can probably afford the once annual trip to Goodwood FoS. But if you are a normal person with a £30K ford, you aren't going to be able to afford £10K a yr road tax and £10 per litre tax on fuel. Therefore my initial idea of keeping my Mustang forever and passing it down to my kids isn't going to be financially viable for me or them.
This leaves me with a choice:
1. Stop using the Mustang as a summer toy, start using it all yr round. Get rid of my winter banger volvo. Drive the thing and put miles on it before it becomes a financial burden to own something fun. Assume depreciation down to zero over 10 yrs from now.
2. Sell it now while it still has some value. In 10 yrs time, even its been garaged its entire life and has only 20K miles, it will be effectively worthless (as per option 1), not a usable classic like a (BEV converted) Morris Minor, not a valuable classic like an original Ferrari 250.
3. Continue using the mustang as a fair weather car and SORN it over winter to save costs. However with post Covid commuting being reduced my annual milage will drop massively and I can see myself only doing maybe 2000-3000 miles per yr. So big chunk of cash in the garage and expense per yr for so few fun miles. Motorbike may be a better option or a genuine old classic that attracts no road tax.
Has anyone else been thinking along similar lines? I know Harrys Garage on YouTube did a piece on this recently, but Harry M was talking about expensive old classic stuff mainly and he is rather wealthy. What about us average people?
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