How green is my hire car?

An excellent question in this time of climate change, oil shortages and the continuing plundering and polluting of our planet.

What may come as a bit of a surprise to most of you is that the founder of Sydney Classic Car Hire, Keith McIlroy, is a Green with a capital G. Keith joined The Greens in 2003, currently serves as a Green’s councillor on Lane Cove Council and is the New South Wales Greens number 2 senate candidate for the coming federal election. Lee Rhiannon being the lead candidate.

Superficially it may seem a bit odd that a leading member of The Greens should be promoting the use of petrol guzzling, polluting, ‘perambulated greenhouses on wheels’ as one of Keith’s Uncles used to refer to them. But dig a little deeper and you can start to understand how you can be a petrol head and still save the planet.

There is no doubt that driving cars for pleasure uses up valuable resources, pollutes the atmosphere and produces those greenhouse gases that are so dangerous to our quality of life on this little planet of ours.

But the reality is that many things we take pleasure from have the same result. The hundreds of thousands of spectators who drive to footy matches every weekend, the 4WDs towing horse floats to country shows, even the bush walkers driving to the National Park car parks.

Yes, there is, perhaps, a difference between cars being used as a means to an end and cars being used for pleasure themselves, but let’s take a more circumspect look at classic cars:

1. They are old. Yet they are still running. All that embedded energy is still locked up in the steel, the wood, the plastic and the leather. They demonstrate that you do not have to replace your car every 3 years as the marketing gurus would have us believe.
2. They are old, yet they have similar fuel consumption as their modern equivalent. Today’s MGB is the Mazda MX5. A sports car for the masses. Same market. Same format. Similar fuel consumption. Similarly our Mustang. There have been advances in fuel efficiency but that has been offset by increased weight of modern cars, increased power assistance and increased acceleration and top speeds.
3. They are old and they produce fewer greenhouse gases than modern cars. Modern cars all have catalytic converters that convert non greenhouse gas to – you guessed it – carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Both of which are greenhouse gases.
4. They are old but they are shared. We don’t all have to have a classic car, we can share them. The same principle applies to modern cars. You don’t have to own all the cars you need. Keep a hybrid for your daily car. Hire a people mover or wagon for the odd big haul. Join a car share club for those few times your family needs two cars at the same time. Hire a classic car for fun!
5. They are an experience, not more stuff. The planet is stuffed full of stuff. Come birthday, xmas or anniversary we buy more plasma TVs, more mobile phones, more ‘toys’, more stuff. Hiring a classic is an experience and shows people how to give pleasure to their loved ones without buying yet more stuff with the impact that has on our resource usage, waste production and pollution.
6. They are old and they require constant maintenance – providing far more employment than our modern cars. It takes Toyota 7 hours to build a Corolla. Each of our cars takes in excess of 50 hours maintenance each year.

More importantly though. It is not the environmental impact of your pleasure that should just be looked at but the environmental impact of your life as a whole. In Keith’s situation he does minimal mileage in cars. His preferred mode of transport is legs, trains and buses, motor bikes and cars, in that order. And this year he is getting himself an electric bicycle for local trips.

So, you can be a petrol head and still save the planet. It is just a matter of having a sensible balance in your lifestyle.

Call Now! 0450 929 709

maggy@sydneyclassiccarhire.com.au