Editorial – Celebrating the History of the Motor Car
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In 2014 the cut-off date for what would be considered historic cars for competition was frozen by the FIA at 1990. This was because the FIA considered that it did not have the expertise in place to regulate the advances in technologies that the later cars represented. It was announced at the time that the freeze would endure for ten years, during which time the FIA has been recruiting experts and gaining knowledge in order to be able to include the later categories into Appendix K.
The ten years have passed and sometime soon the new 2025 Appendix K will be published with the inclusion of cars up to 2000. It has been a major piece of work, carried out by the FIA on our behalf. While they were at it, it was decided to re-order some of the existing content that has been appended and amended over the last 50 years to try and make it more user friendly and easier to navigate. Some changes in cut off dates were announced when the project, known as Project 2025 was started (see our September 2023 issue), to better reflect the years in which certain cars actually ran. So, for example Group C cars, that were cut off in their prime, will now be grouped together in a period from 1982 to 1993, dates that better reflect the history of the class.
The new document has just been made public (literally in the last few minutes as I write) after it was approved by the World Council, so no one has yet read it in detail, but we are assured that those who framed it stuck to the brief they were given to not change any of the existing regulations during the re-write. Most importantly the opening paragraph is still intact. You can download it at https://historicdb.fia.com/regulations/appendix-k.
Maybe it is worth repeating the opening paragraph here, as a reminder to all of us, what it is we are actually doing when we race historic cars:
“The FIA has created the regulations in Appendix K so that Historic Cars may be used for Competitions under a set of rules that preserve the specifications of their period and prevent the modifications of performance and behaviour which could arise through the application of modern technology. Historic competition is not simply another formula in which to acquire trophies, it is a discipline apart, in which one of the essential ingredients is a devotion to the cars and to their history. Historic Motor Sport enables the active celebration of the History of the Motor Car.”
We are celebrating the History of the Motor Car. The fact that the body that governs all of world motorsport has accorded us this special status of being “a discipline apart” has allowed us to thrive unimpeded by much of the bureaucracy that governs modern motorsport. We’ve had dispensation after dispensation because we are a different discipline. It is very reassuring to know that the FIA continues to view us as such.
It seems impossible that we are already reaching the end of the season. A season that gets longer and longer as time goes by. As we go to press there are a few major race meetings and rallies yet to take place before the season is over, and they will be covered in our next issue. Meanwhile we have had plenty of ‘celebrations of the History of the Motor Car’ to report in this issue, so if you want to see your name in print, or to see what your friends are up to, read on.. CS
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