Running towards bankruptcy

Last year, some of our readers were kind enough to take me with them on the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. It was an amazing day out. It wasn’t cold, it didn’t rain, and despite many, many breakdowns, we did eventually complete the race. I loved it. I also ended up loving the cars. Modern cars are so predictable both to look at and to drive that there’s no fun in them. But these, they came in every shape and form and absolutely refused to behave much like cars at all (having to be pushed up hills and not moving at all for hours on end, for example). Much more fun, and I think probably a wonderful thing to own. But do they make a good investment? I’m not entirely convinced - prices already seem high to me. However, Stewart Skilbeck thinks they’re still a pretty good deal.

One of the amazing things about driving about in a veteran car is that you go so slowly that you actually have time to look at the view. And what a nasty view the main roads of Britain offer most of the time. Mainly of cars. You’d expect I’d know this, but what seemed surprising was not the number of cars on the road, but the number in the driveways of the houses we passed. Most households seemed to own at least two. And pretty much every second commercial outlet (that wasn’t a Tesco) was a second hand or new car showroom of some kind. Not long before going on the Brighton Run I read a survey by one of the insurance companies that claimed one in five families with a child of driving age owned four or more cars. Half owned three. I didn’t believe a word of it. In America maybe, but surely not here. I believed it by the time we got to Croydon: the 0% interest deals on offer on the forecourts of several of the garages were so good it was only the fact that you never stop a veteran car when its moving that stopped me buying three myself before lunch.

That so many people have had no such reason to hold them back might explain the huge number of bankruptcies in the UK.In the last quarter of 2004, personal bankruptcies in the UK rose nearly 35%, with the typical candidate being under 30 and owing well over £25,000 to 11 different creditors. Sounds nasty doesn’t it? But this is probably only the beginning. Last year, 1.1 million people asked the Citizens Advice Bureau for advice on debt. But this year, with inflation and interest rates on the up, private-sector employment on the way down, personal debt at record highs and the credit-card companies as desperate for our business as ever, I think they’ll find their phones are busier than ever before.