I can’t decide whether it’s me or my age but whenever I catch sight of a Morris Minor my insides go soft and gooey.
It might be the fact that a dark green four-door woody model was our family sedan when I was growing up.
The car we piled into to head to the south coast for the summer holidays and the car I would learn to
drive in and pass my test in.

So, every time I get near one, the memories come flooding back, and a recent trip to one of the monthly meetings was such
an occasion. The theme that day was “Fabulous family favourites — from Fords to Flaminias”. And before you dismiss me
as a vintage anorak, I should say that I had to Google the latter to discover it was a popular Lancia model from the late 1950s.

Of course there was bound to be a Morris Minor there. Its cuddly shape beckoned me forwards, the dimpled door handles
just asked to be pulled, the distinctive interior aroma awoke the memories. There was the huge, thin steering wheel that
felt so right, and the little leather door strap hung on the passenger’s door, which I remember being torn off by a girlfriend
hanging on for dear life as I went through my Jim Clark impersonations.

Emerging from my reverie, I began to wonder whether these relics were unique in eliciting such nostalgia.

Will modern cars do the same for the younger generation of drivers?

Somehow I can’t see men in their fifties getting misty-eyed over a Nissan X-Terra their mum drove them to the supermarket
in when they were 16. Or the Ford Contour their grandad brought back gleaming new from the showroom, boasting about
his cashback deal.

There are some cars from the past couple of decades that might qualify. I have always had a soft spot for the 1980s Audi quattro.
Not only was it a ground-breaking road car but it turned the world of rallying upside down, and while at the time I was (briefly)
a Formula One driver and therefore thought myself slightly superior to the mud wrestlers, it was the one rally car that I would
willingly have swapped my Ensign F1 car for, although only for an hour or so.

There are others too: the Land Rover Defender will forever be the ultimate 4x4 — an honest-to-goodness off-road workhorse
that does without the comfort and cupholders. I can imagine the Ford Cortina becoming something of a cult classic among
certain types of people too — although I probably wouldn’t want to fall into conversation with them at the pub.

The speed freak in me still gets a thrill behind the wheel of the original Mazda MX-5, probably the most complete small
sports car ever built. And then there is the Golf GTI (any generation save the fourth one, which was rubbish).
There are unlikely contenders too: how about the Mk IV Ford Escort, and the Subaru Impreza turbo
— boy-racer cars, but oh boy.

You may scoff, but mark my words: in the years to come when we are all reduced to driving pods powered by air,
controlled by computer and monitored by a police surveillance system, the image of the boy racer with his Burberry
cap and go-faster stripes will be a cosy memory.

Of course, one of the prerequisites for a future classic and a degree of nostalgia is rarity. And in this case, it may be
that anything with a gas or diesel engine that doesn’t achieve more than 80mpg will come to be seen as a collectible.
If the government’s scrappage plan leads to thousands of second-hand cars more than 10 years old being traded in
and reduced to scrap, who knows how sought-after a Ford Focus might one day become?