I have seen a couple of posts recently which are saying some dealer sourced parts take a while to appear.

I am now wondering, as the FL2 will eventually move from the 'current', then the 'old', to the 'classic' status if I am about to re-live my experiences that I had with my (beloved) Triumph Dolomite Sprint that I owned from nearly new for nearly 30 years.

Then I found that I moved from dealer servicing with expensive dealer parts, to independent servicing with cheaper old stock parts.

The next move was to specialist repair shops with cheap (mainly 2nd hand) parts, with a plentiful supply of scrap cars.

But then the car was achieving classic status, the 2nd hand value stopped falling and started to rise, but not only did the cars get rarer, but the available spares got dearer and harder to find.

The final stage came when the bits that regularly failed became impossible to find unless someone had re-engineered a batch of bits. Belonging to a good classic car club was the only way to survive.

I am sure the FL2 will become a classic. Which is the club I should be looking for? FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 76k+ miles) (MY2015)

Quote :- Some automotive organisations may refer to a car made in the 1940s as a Classic, while others my consider cars from the 1980s to Classics.

Never mind these cars getting to classic status some of us on here will fall off the perch well before then.  FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Classic is a miss used word when attached to cars, late 30's to the 60's for some are historic if they are racing cars, Classics is peculiar to low volume sports and some very up market low production cars built in the middle 50's to the middle 70's the rest are collectors cars in which the FL2 may fit, but because of the way LR's are built they tend to last longer than the average run of the mill production cars, they will probably fit into the cult car category as the Series LR's and "Classic" RR from the 70's to the middle with 90's VW Beetle and 2CV's. Odd examples are the Lotus Cortina and Cortina Lotus are Classic saloons whereas the Cortina of any Mk is a collectors car d ue to the fact it still exists though should have rusted away years ago  my PC is slightly to the right of Genghis
2012 HSE SD4 In Orkney Grey now gone, best car ever.

Getting back to the original question, what is likely to kill these cars will be the availability of complex and vehicle specific components; while it’s relatively achievable to remanufacture a sill, or even a wing, for a Morris Minor, modern items like multiple ECU’s and sensors will be the killer, as will passing MoT emissions tests, or being legal to be used in towns and cities.

I hate to say it, but I can’t see many recent cars, like the FL2, being possible to run into mega old age like your Sprint was.

I don't think ECU's will be a problem in fact they may be easier as electronics become more software driven rather than hardware, though the plugs and sockets may be a problem. my PC is slightly to the right of Genghis
2012 HSE SD4 In Orkney Grey now gone, best car ever.

how many cars do you see now from the 80's for example (when I first started driving).... hardly any if at all.

the 'classic' cars of old were never produced in the numbers we starting getting from the 70's onwards, so there was originally a higher volume of 70's onwards cars on the roads. Very few of them bore any discernible character other than fun to drive or practical etc. So IMO they now have become collectors cars rather than classic cars.

I feel, as good as the FL2 has been (and the FL1) that the 10 years worth of sales means there are vast amounts out there, so models like the Camel (yes there were Camel Trophy FL1) the G4, the i6 maybe, will become collectable but may never reach a perceived 'classic' status. Add into the electronics that all cars have in them these days then this makes them virtually impossible to work on when they are 40/50/60 year old cars

The thing that should keep them on the road for a long , long , time, is that in the main they share many components , particularly service components with millions of Ford , Volvo , Jaguar cars that were designed and produced under Ford’s ownership . The engine is a Ford - PSA collaboration, again millions of variants are out there.The second thing will be that there is a steady stream of these vehicles finding their way into breakers yards , and that will continue . Unlike the Series and Defenders I doubt if many people will collect Freelander 2 , sure there will be the odd officianado , but nowhere like the cult of the “ real “ LandRover . As far as things like electronics go , it’s easy to get an ECU reconditioned , but not cheap.

So I predict that if you want to see the odd one on the road in 25 years time that will be possible , but with none of these cars meeting current emissions standards , I reckon the fate of them will to be economically unviable within 10 years time. Things like clean air zones and road pricing will kill them , and most will be scrapped or exported to places where that isn’t an issue . 2009 GS Auto Zermatt Silver - Sold June 21 after 10 years of ownership

2016 Subaru Outback SE 2.0 diesel SE Premium Lineartronic Sold 2024 after 8 years and 80k miles . Best Car I ever owned !

2023 Toyota Hilux invincible X 2.8 Auto .

"....... and most will be scrapped or exported to places where that isn’t an issue ......"


for the last 10 yrs of FL1 ownership (FL1 celebrated 20yrs in 2017) many vehicles both complete and part were shipped to Poland.

My last two vehicles were sold to Slovakia and Poland, but they were both built (by myself) for expedition use, as is my current vehicle, which will be sold towards the end of this year. New project underway

I know of a guy who bought 10's thousands of obsolete parts / production overrun for the FL1 and has them 'stored' for future sale, as and when parts become total unavailable, he calls it 'his nest egg' for later life.




.

On a slightly different tack. I was talking to a guy yesterday who has a 40 year old Mercedes that was having an MOT. He said that it won't need one after this year due to its age but was wondering how his insurance will cover the fact that he will have no way of proving that it is roadworthy if involved in an accident. I know that the test only proves it's roadworthy at the time of the test but at least you have that to go on. I know another guy with both a 70 and a 90 year old Alvis and he said that fewer garages that will work an old car now as they don't have the expertise (eg what's a King Pin?) and don't want to be liable for anything going wrong. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

Thank you for all your replies and thoughts.
As I am myself in the process of moving from being old to classic, I don't think that the longer term will really worry me.

Much of my lifetime I have been involved in keeping large complex systems going, and I wondered if there was any future in the upkeep of modern vehicles.

My own thoughts are, that like an old computer, compatible parts will become hard to come by, and the plugs and sockets will become intermitent in connection.

We have become a throw away society.

Although you could take a gamble and start collecting FL2s in a field somewhere. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 76k+ miles) (MY2015)

Last edited by IanMetro on 16th Mar 2018 12:32 pm. Edited 1 time in total

At last I can justify my drive way

Might be useful to start collecting diagnostic kit too then. I knew a guy who had a business on the side transferring data from old systems. He built a system at home with every sized floppy disc he could find ( even 8" !), CDs, Betamax etc that he could find and the longer time went on the more he could charge as it was amazing what people were prepared to pay for old family photos or documents stored on 5 1/4" floppies especially if Grandad had stored legal stuff on them. Same goes for old copies of Microsoft Word since documents from Word 1 are apparently not readable on the latest version. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

IanMetro wrote:

Although you could take a gamble and start collecting FL2s in a field somewhere.

Yorky Bob is at tan Hill in June


Dorset ".... every sized floppy disc he could find ( even 8" !), ......"


Does he do Core memory ????? Than was my first introduction into digital storage.


.

We had an engineer who took early retirement, and then made a living buying up old mainframe computer equipment, stripping it down, and selling (obsolete) sub-units back to us. (As far as I can remember his name was Ralph and he lived in the Melksham area -- If you are still out there somewhere)

For the record, I started the computer part of my career working on ICL 1900 mainframes, with coding inputs on paper tapes, and cards. I worked for International Computers (ICL) for some 20+ years.

From the replies I have seen from older FL2 owners, I may have some ex-colleagues around.

As far as the Dolly Sprint was concerned, there were specialist garages around with fields and workshops full of come in handy bits, and one locally even had a 20 year old, unused, body shell in the corner of their workshop. (they told me it was waiting for suitable donor parts) FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 76k+ miles) (MY2015)