The greenest car is the one already built

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Today is World Environment Day. This year, the focus is on climate change. What that has to do with this website, you may wonder. Let me be clear: I have absolutely no intention of entering into a debate here about whether driving our cars contributes to it, or even whether it is a problem at all. For that, social media offers more than enough opportunities.

What I would like to reflect on for a moment, however, is the sustainability of our hobby.
Over the past years, I have met many people within our world. People who preserve, restore, rebuild and maintain. In an age of disposable culture, pre-war cars remind us that sustainability was once taken for granted: building things to last for generations.

And that is precisely what most of us continue to do.

Throw things away? Preferably not. Repair them instead. Or at the very least cherish the idea that something might one day still be repairable, and therefore need not be replaced immediately. A love of mechanics rather than consumption. Many of our cars have existed for nearly a century. Not because they were perfect, but because people made the effort to preserve them. Because quality, craftsmanship and longevity were once perfectly ordinary values.

Perhaps it is worth remembering that the next time we buy something seemingly designed for a single lifespan — or less. Cherish old, well-made products. Maintain them. Use them. Pass them on.

Then, hopefully, we may continue pottering around in our old cars for many years to come.

Words: Laurens Klein, photo of 1908 Fiat via Detroit Public Library

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