THE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE HISTORIC AND CLASSIC MOTOR INDUSTRY IN THE UK

6 1. Foreword One of the UK’s greatest assets is its heritage. Historic houses, heritage city centres and a wide range of items that remind us of the past. We were the country of the Industrial Revolution and our industrial heritage is especially important. Historic and classic vehicles are a major part of that heritage. We estimate that the UK’s fleet of classic and historic vehicles is worth £12.6 billion on a very conservative estimate , which makes it the most important single component of the UK’s mechanical and indu strial heritage. HERO-ERA have commissioned this report as a major player in the industry because we feel we have an obligation to contribute to the industry by letting the wider public know about what we all do and how it affects them. This is not a “money making” exercise for HERO - ERA – although we commissioned the report, we will make it available for others to use for free. We have deliberately not just focussed on classic rallying but also attempted to cover all the different aspects of heritage and c lassic motoring from ownership to restoration to repair to museums to racing to events to owners’ clubs as well as rallying. We also look at other aspects – even magazines. The report shows how the sector contributes to the economy and society. One of the most important themes of the report is its analysis of the extent to which traditional craftmanship/manufacturing goes into this industry in its different forms. These heritage crafts have a strong intrinsic value and need to be preserved. They are also highly skilled and command a pay premium. Another is that the sector, because it is highly labour intensive and has a low materials and energy intensity, is much greener than virtually any other type of consumer expenditure. Its carbon footprint per £ spent is less than a sixth of an average consumer basket of spending. There are three key economic facts in the report, even though we have deliberately made conservative assumptions about the size of the sector: • The turnover of the whole sector is over £18 billion. • The contribution to gross value added is nearly £9 billion. • And 113,000 jobs depend on the sector. This makes the classic and historic vehicles sector about a fifth of the size of the whole heritage sector, about the same order of magnitude as the whole arts and creative sector and also the whole UK ports sector and roughly twice the size of the Scotch whisky sector. Cebr has a reputation for assessments of this kind which means that we can feel confident that the work is comparable with similar estimates made for other sectors. No one would suggest that any of those other sectors are disposable and similarly the historic and classic vehicles sector is a highly important sector that should also be cherished. One of the key virtues of this s ector is that it is regionally dispersed. We estimate that only 5% of the sector’s activity takes place in London and even this business is often small family-based trading businesses. Most of the sector is based outside city centres in rural areas which might otherwise be left behind by economic change. We are looking to pool this information. We have been working with or have had information supplied by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC who look after 500 clubs) and the Royal Automobile Club, along with many others. Many I commend this report to you. It’s not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of all participants in all facets of classic motoring.