Education and Skills

HCVA promotes the wider understanding of the economic and social benefits of the historic and classic vehicle sector, ensuring a diverse and inclusive industry drives future generations to engage. We work with members, partners and corporations to actively promote career opportunities within the sector, from engineering to marketing, operations to executive leadership. 

Emily Grace, 15 years old and passionate about old cars, became an ambassador for the charity StarterMotor in September 2023, which aims to introduce the next generation to the historic car world. Since entering the classic car community Emily has been keen to challenge the growing issue surrounding the lack of young people.

"Through the StarterMotor charity, I've entered the classic car community and encountered opportunities and challenges. 

In March 2024, I was lucky to be donated a 1952 Morris Minor, named 'Barney' by the Morris Minor owners club, which had been abandoned for 40 years, and lived with an owl in a barn. I plan to restore it over the next three years, to showcase my personal passion, mission, and brand, which are focused on showing the benefits and opportunities from owning this sort of car to other young people.

But it looks like my generation lacks the skills and knowledge to preserve these beautiful things. How can we ensure their future?

Through Barney and StarterMotor, I hope to provide similar opportunities for young people with a passion for old cars. It's crucial for older generations to help young people make connections and support them as they learn. I also aim to highlight individuals and businesses that preserve and restore classic cars."

17th September 2024

Emily writes...

Thanks to the charity StarterMotor, I've attended many car events this summer. However, there’s been a noticeable absence of young people. As a young woman, I want to share my perspective and address this issue.

A survey by Hagerty found that Millennials and Gen Z have a stronger desire to own classic cars than older generations, pointing to an increasingly lower age of car enthusiasts and the rising popularity of vintage vehicles in the young generation.

Yet the classic vehicle community still lacks young members. This is because it resists change. The industry hosts identical events, intended to draw in a younger crowd, but they never come. Doesn't this serve as a clear indication that the industry needs to change its outdated methods?

Stereotypes about teens must be broken and solutions proposed to combat the perceptions that: "collector cars are too expensive for under 50", "young people don't appreciate classics", and "kids are too consumed by technology".

The classic car industry must reassess its youth engagement strategies. Instead of relying on advice from an ageing demographic, seek direct input from the target audience and make necessary changes based on the feedback from young people.

To attract teenagers, the classic car community must actively seek their attention and fill in gaps in knowledge. As more young people show interest in owning classic cars, it’s important to welcome them and meet their needs to ensure the industry’s stability.

The issue

As the voice of the classic car industry, we and our members are acutely aware that there is a pressing need for more skilled restorers, repairers and technicians.  We are very concerned that we need to get more young people recognising and apppreciating that a career in classic car restoration is a viable option for the future. As more older engineers retire we risk losing their skills and knowledge unless they can be passed on to the next generations.

What are we doing?

The fundamentals of our campaign are about protecting the future classic car industry and the jobs that it supports. All of our campaign positions actively support that focus.

With regard to the next generations, we are working alongside the Heritage Skills Academy who work with employers, apprentices, and industry leaders to train the next generation of heritage engineers and promote exciting opportunities within the heritage industry. We are engaged with StarterMotor whose passion is to see the next generation of young people driving, maintaining and enjoying historic cars.

We  use our voice to support these excellent organisations.

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To ensure the future of our past, engaging the younger generation in the sector as owners, enthusiasts and employees is critical.

A recent discussion with our classic sector counterparts in France revealed that the average age of Historic and Classic owners has recently fallen from 58 to 54 - not a big step you might think but it’s a step in the right direction. Similar to the UK there is a gradual trend towards the purchase of new electric vehicles for day to day use across the full age spectrum. The trend has seen many of these individuals purchasing classic vehicles for their weekend enjoyment and wellbeing many of whom have not been part of the sector previously.

Attracting the younger generations is critical to ensuring the future of the sector.

We state generations because if we want to attract the people below the average ages above we will be attracting the so called generations, X, Y and Z. Each has a different way of viewing the world and so encouraging their participation in our sector requires different messaging to the different groups. Blanketing Facebook with articles may find the generation X folks whilst Instagram and more likely Tik Tok the latest generation. Attention spans when viewing material also varies from just a few seconds to a few minutes so this impacts the messaging. All rather tricky!

Well, here at the HCVA we are engaging with individuals from the full spectrum of generations to help with the messaging from the teenage enthusiast to the early 50’s television presenter. They are all advocates and they are supporting the HCVA. We are in the early stages of developing the various marketing and media platforms for and with these supporters and very much look forward to sharing them with our membership and as appropriate wider to attract more members.

Remember, we are an 'open to all' organisation and are extremely keen to ensure that we have impeccable Equality, Diversity and Inclusion credentials. So members from the elder chap with his 1930’s Bentley or the young lady with her MGF, or vice versa of course and all in between are welcome. We are working with insurers to understand the opportunities for competitive rates for the younger classic driver who are HCVA members. More of this in due course.

Included in this drive to encourage younger people into the sector is skills. We need new blood, particularly in the crafts such as bodywork and interior and exterior trim. The UK has a global reputation for these skills and crafts and to maintain our £18.3bn industry we need to bring through the skills. The Heritage Skills Academy with its facilities at Bicester and Brooklands are a real benchmark for this development. Janice and John Pitchforth that run the Academy are truly passionate about what they do and the development of the youth in these critical skills. The HCVA fully support their activities and will continue to promote them so that we can bring industry to their apprentices and their apprentices to industry.

The skills in the sector don’t stop at the crafts. Developing young enthusiasts across the spectrum is key as selling, maintaining, storing, insuring, financing and more around these vehicles is substantially enabled by the enthusiastic worker. Understanding the history of a marque and therefore the providence of a vehicle is key when it comes to insuring, financing and selling it so once again it needs knowledgeable young folks to carry the baton forward.

“We have an enthusiastic young team that are daily learning more about each of the magnificent vehicles we buy and sell on behalf of our customers and a real asset to the sector, the vehicles and customers and our business” 

James Mitchell – CEO Pendine and HCVA Founding Partner