The last post here went online in February. Since then, a laptop died spectacularly, software updates consumed far more time than they had any right to, a carburetor from a 1947 Plymouth P15-C spent quality time inside an ultrasonic cleaner, and life generally moved faster than expected. Suddenly it’s May.
During those months several developments started overlapping in a way that’s difficult to ignore. And sometimes I wonder how it is possible we make such a big mess of this world. Fuel prices are climbing again. Tensions around Iran and instability in the Middle East have once more reminded the world, and Europe specifically, how vulnerable it remains to global energy markets. Every geopolitical shock seems to arrive directly at the fuel pump within days. Predictably, consumers respond the same way they always do: by looking for cheaper mobility.
That usually means smaller engines, hybrids, or increasingly, electric vehicles.
At the same time, Europe is steadily moving toward a future where driving itself is becoming more automated, more regulated, and in some ways, less dependent on the driver altogether. Modern vehicles are increasingly designed around minimizing driver input. Lane assist gently corrects steering. Emergency braking intervenes before the driver reacts. Adaptive cruise control manages following distances automatically. Speed warning systems complain constantly. Parking sensors, reversing cameras, fatigue monitoring, steering intervention systems — every year new layers of electronic supervision are added between the driver and the machine. And GSR2 expansions apply in July 2026, which mandate advanced driver distraction warnings and upgraded pedestrian/cyclist detection for all new vehicle types.
Whether these systems genuinely improve safety or not isn't something I like to discuss in this blog. The FIA report states it does https://www.fiaregion1.com/expert-study-on-adas-and-dcas-impacts-on-road-safety-driver-trust-and-policy/. Personally I hate most of these systems. Most importantly it has an uncomfortable side effect nobody seems particularly interested in discussing: the steady erosion of driving skill itself!
Over the last few years, the European Union has steadily expanded mandatory driver assistance requirements for new vehicles. Features once considered premium options are now becoming compulsory: lane keeping systems, intelligent speed assistance, automatic emergency braking, fatigue detection, reversing systems, and increasingly intrusive driver monitoring technologies. Manufacturers market these systems as safety innovations. Statistically advanced driver assistance systems can play a decisive role, assuming drivers understand, trust, and consistently use them. And obviously, the more driver assistance systems in a car the more new drivers are using these in driver training.
This leads us to a more complicated question, which is what happens when multiple generations of drivers grow up relying on these systems from the very beginning? Because there is a subtle but important difference between a driver being assisted and a driver being replaced.
Modern cars increasingly filter out the consequences of poor driving habits. Steering corrections compensate for inattention. Emergency braking intervenes during delayed reactions. Sensors and cameras eliminate the need for spatial awareness that previous generations simply had to develop naturally. The result is that driving itself is becoming less mechanical, less tactile, and arguably less skill-based.
A growing number of younger drivers have never experienced a car without parking sensors. Many have never driven without ABS, traction control, or stability systems. Increasingly, new drivers are taking lessons and examinations in electric vehicles, which means they automatically receive a Code 78 license. Llegally restricting them to automatic transmissions only.
That number is quietly rising across Europe.
On paper, this makes perfect sense. Most EVs are automatic. Most new premium cars are automatic. Manufacturers themselves are rapidly abandoning manual gearboxes entirely. But classic cars are another story altogether!
What Happens When Nobody Knows How to Drive the Classics? This is where things become genuinely interesting.
For decades, classic cars remained culturally accessible because older driving skills were still widely understood. Even someone unfamiliar with a particular car usually understood the fundamentals of operating it. That may no longer be true twenty years from now.
A generation raised entirely on electric drivetrains, regenerative braking, driver aids, and automatic-only licensing will experience classic cars very differently.
And perhaps that changes the future of classic cars collectability itself.
Because the value of classic cars has never been based purely on rarity. It also depends on participation. Cars survive culturally when people continue driving, maintaining, and understanding them. The worrying possibility is not that classic cars disappear, but that they become increasingly disconnected from everyday automotive culture. Less “old car,” more specialized hobby.
In some ways, this is already happening. Younger enthusiasts often enter car culture digitally. YouTube restorations, or social media clips rather than physical experience. They may admire manual cars without ever having driven one. That creates a strange contradiction: enthusiasm for analog cars may continue growing at exactly the same moment real-world familiarity with them declines.
It would be easy to dismiss all of this as romanticism from aging enthusiasts complaining about modern technology. But that misses the larger point.
Older cars required drivers to participate continuously in the driving process. You listened to the engine. You felt the clutch engagement. You understood the machine because the machine constantly communicated with you. Modern vehicles increasingly prioritize isolation from those very sensations.
And perhaps that explains why genuinely analog cars have become so desirable in recent years. They offer something modern vehicles increasingly filter out: involvement.
But What Happens to the Cars Themselves?
This is where things become genuinely uncertain. Classic cars have always derived their value from more than rarity alone. They remain desirable because people can still experience them properly. On real roads, in real conditions, driven the way they were intended to be driven.
But Europe is changing rapidly.
Fuel prices continue rising. Environmental regulations become stricter almost yearly. More cities introduce low-emission zones. Manual gearboxes are disappearing from driving schools. Code 78 licenses are increasing as more learner drivers take exams in vehicles with automatic gearboxes.
Individually, none of these developments threaten classic cars. Together, however, they begin forming a very different landscape for the future. Because what happens when a growing percentage of drivers are no longer licensed to drive manual-transmission vehicles at all?
What happens when younger enthusiasts admire classic cars but lack the practical skills — or legal permissions — to operate them comfortably?
And perhaps the larger question: what happens when governments increasingly view older combustion vehicles not as cultural heritage, but simply as emissions sources?
For now, classic cars still occupy a protected cultural space in Europe. Events like the Mille Miglia, Goodwood Revival, Le Mans Classic, and countless local historic rallies continue attracting enormous enthusiasm. But these events survive because society still accepts the idea that historic vehicles deserve to remain visible and operational.
If future regulations continue tightening while younger generations become increasingly disconnected from analog driving, classic cars risk slowly shifting from functioning machines into static display objects. Admired, preserved, photographed, but rarely driven. Perhaps even ending as museum pieces, exported to other continents or just scrapped. Not because enthusiasts stopped caring, but because the environment around them changed completely.
And perhaps that is the real challenge facing classic car culture over the next twenty years. Not whether electric vehicles take over, but whether Europe can continue making room for automotive heritage in a future increasingly designed around automation, electrification, and restriction.
Because a classic car standing silently behind velvet ropes is not really alive at all.
