The director of Motorclassica says he’s had enough of seeing classic car owners, enthusiasts and the industry in general being hampered by regulation and taxes.
Speaking to AutoTalk before the weekend of Motorclassica, arguably one of the most prominent events in Australia, director Paul Mathers says in light of Queensland and Victoria implementing additional vehicle tax legislation, state and federal governments need to ease up on the passionate classic car community.
“Broadly speaking, we’ve got governments that would prefer to see us all riding bicycles than driving great, old cars and that sort of legislation makes it very difficult for people just to own them,” he says.
“Most of these cars sit in private garages or museums, they’re not being driven every day – they come out on the weekend if they’re lucky, some of them barely rack up 250km of driving a year,” Mathers appeals.
“These aren’t cars that should be slogged with taxes; it should be made easy for people to see these cars because they bring joy not just to their drivers and owners, but to everybody else who sees them,” he adds.
Mathers says classic car owners who are already doing the economic heavy lifting by paying GST on products, paying small business salaries, paying registration and fuel excise, should not be getting stung again.
“I can’t remember the figures, but I remember writing a submission a couple of years ago which spelled out that the classic car industry, considering its cottage-size, contributes significantly to the Australian economy,” he says.
“There are a lot of people spending three, four or five times the value of a car to make it perfect,” Mathers explains.
“Where’s that money coming from? How’s it generated? If you take a $15,000 car and spend $70,000-80,000 restoring it, that’s money that would never have existed otherwise; revenue that has been made simply because somebody has a dream,” he says.
“It’s money for jam – you don’t have to tax anybody, you don’t have to take anything from voters – that’s money for nothing, isn’t it?”
Countless classic cars with old or original serviceable parts containing or potentially containing asbestos material, such as brake pads and drum linings, gaskets and clutch faces, have been held up in costly quarantine biosecurity measures at Australian ports in recent years.
In March last year the ABC reported six classic Maseratis which were sent back to the UK after being scheduled for a Maserati Global Gather roadtrip from the Great Ocean Road to Sydney – despite not being confirmed as containing asbestos or not.
Mustangs and Ferraris were also forcibly stripped at significant owners’ expense in 2017 saw damaged caused by Australian Border Force inspectors who “cut samples” and “damaged ribbed aluminium oil oil pan fins”.
“ABF required both a removal expert and an assessor to supervise the work, a hygienist to test the air for asbestos and two mechanics in space suits, all to remove a clutch,” a source says online.
“The caulking around the windshield, firewall and inner wheel wells was also removed but reason prevailed and so the engines were not disassembled,” they reveal.
“Costs including the two removal experts, two assessors, two mechanics, the hygienist, plus the asbestos lab analyses and bulk sample report was approximately $15,000, not including the damage and cost to replace seized parts on both cars plus the possibility of fines for non-compliance,” they continue.
Mathers signals to governments and regulators that when people pull up in a classic car, other people next to them roll down the window and want to know what it is.
“We’ve got so little joy in our lives these days; it’s great to see these cars out on the road,” he says.
“Your heart literally springs when you see these old cars coming toward you, but when it’s made difficult to own them, it affects everybody, without us necessarily realising it,” he pleads.
Mathers explains one example of employment the industry offers, is a colleague who has been cleaning Motorclassica cars for nine out of 10 years, and spent the previous five months preparing cars just for the show.
“We’re genuinely creating business for people,” he highlights.
“Restorers are the real big winners, whose companies take the big older vintage and veteran cars, restoring them over several years, some projects are worth a quarter of a million, even half a million dollars,” Mathers adds.
“I know many collectors who buy and sell cars specifically so they can restore them and show the finished product at Motorclassica, and I know from the mouths of those restorer business owners, their business has increased exponentially because of Motorclassica,” he concludes.
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