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

48 10. Direct economic impact of selected industries associated with classic and historic vehicles 10.1 Introduction This section looks at various industries associated with classic and historic vehicles. We have separately looked at three specific sectors – magazines, models and ‘clothing and regalia’. 10.2 Magazines and websites The UK market is well served with classic car magazines and websites, from the established monthlies through to weeklies and the single marque titles, plus the owner clubs magazines – whether it’s buying, selling, historic motorsport or restoring they all provide a wonderful source of content both in print and online for the strong community of classic car enthusiasts who have an enormous appetite to keep up to date with their passion. In all we have counted 68 specialist classic and historic vehicle magazines excluding those of owners clubs and provided as part of the members’ su bscriptions, which have been included separately under owners clubs. Our very cautious estimate that the magazines have annual revenue of £59 million and generate 335 full -time equivalent jobs. We have not at this stage been able to estimate the contribution of classic vehicle websites, which in any case seem to be a moving target with the number rising fast. It is quite likely that their contribution is larger than that of the magazines. 10.3 Models Models are a smaller subsection. We have estimated t hat the sector in the UK generates £11 million per annum in revenues though as the models are typically manufactured abroad the UK GVA content is low at £2.8 million and the jobs associated are also low at 34 full-time equivalents. 10.4 Clothing and regalia Our rough estimate for the impact of clothing and regalia sales, based on working back from their advertising, is about £10 million per annum. This would not include sales at events which would be included under events. 10.5 Tools We have looked at the size of the total industry and worked backwards from the amount of advertising to make an estimate of how much is spend on tools and equipment by amateur classic vehicle owners. We have concluded that a conservative estimate might be that they spend about £50 million a year. Machine Mart alone turned over £71.6 million in the year to end May 2019 although sales of equipment go somewhat beyond the classic and historic vehicles sector. Halfords UK turnover in financial year 2019 was £1,138.6 million, though again they s ell a lot more than simply tools for classic cars. 10.6 Economic impact We show a very cautious estimate of the economic impact of these industries in Table 19. Because of their production in the UK, the magazines seem to have the biggest impact on the economy.