I soon discovered that I couldn't afford my dream E-Type Jaguar but one day I spotted the ad for

I soon discovered that I couldn't afford my dream E-Type Jaguar, but one day I spotted the ad for the XK150 - the E-Type's predecessor - and I was doomed A grand folly overcame me. Some cars quintupled in price between 1986 and 1990, then their value fell by five times. But before you buy one, be warned by what happened to me.My starting point was sensible enough. But it was a 1958 Jaguar XK150 and I had fallen in love with it. I handed the man pounds 12,000, and told myself I could do lots of work myself and get it in tip-top nick for a few thousand more That was eight years ago It is in tip-top nick In fact, it is drop-dead gorgeous. But it has cost me pounds 35,000.Now is a good time to buy a classic car - if you want one You will neither make, nor lose, a lot of money The market has done the same as with housing, only more so.

It had no windows and straw was sticking out of its exhaust pipe. Because it is Japanese it is not fashionable, and is worth about a third of a comparable English sports coupe I also run a 1969 Riley Elf It's a jumped-up Mini I suppose. But where else could you get a usable car with leather seats, walnut dash and chrome trim, and all for pounds 1,400?Classic cars from the Fifties and Sixties can provide genuinely cheap motoring as well as an interesting hobby, so long as you keep your feet on the ground - metaphorically, that is.CGA drop-dead gorgeous JagIt was sitting at the back of a barn in Leicestershire. You can get a very smart one for pounds 2,500 and a presentable one for pounds 1,000 and use them every day.I bought a 1967 S800 Honda, one of the first Japanese imports It is rare and pretty. P4s are the best bargains around, because they are tough, well made and, because so many have survived, they are still dirt-cheap. It is a bit slow off the mark, and thirsty, but it can cruise the motorway all day at 70mph.

I still have it, although my daughter drives it more than I do, and very pretty they both look too. I could get pounds 3,000 for the car.I have a P4 Rover, nicknamed "Auntie". I insure them for limited mileage at around pounds 100 a year each, and I do not own a modern car.I started collecting when I bought a 1959 Frogeye Sprite for pounds 495 It was what I had wanted in 1959, but could not afford. My worst indulgence was a 1948 Triumph Roadster, a Bergerac car. I paid less than pounds 2,000, but I admit it has cost me another pounds 10,000 to restore, and even now it is not an easy vehicle to take out on London roads.My other cars are old and interesting, cheap to buy and easy to drive.

They cost a bit to tax, insure and keep in good repair, but they never depreciate. But the classic car movement is alive and well.Some people buy old cars because of the challenge of coping with ancient technology, some because they like to drive a classic fashion statement, and still others because they live in a time warp, trapped in the decade when these cars were new.In the past 20 years I have bought seven old cars I still have six of them. My magnificent seven I might have bought a Bugatti or a Maserati, or that classic Mercedes rescued from a barn that went for a quarter of a million in the Eighties boom I didn't, and it is just as well. The rule of thumb "the higher they go the further they fall" applies to most classic car "investments". Many resale values halved in the recession, and even in the recovery the price graphs published by the leading classic car magazines have been flatter than a punctured tyre. Alone and unadorned, the great voice sounded more winsome than ever No wonder his admirers rushed the stage at the end..

Sharon's trio sometimes got in the way, and the pianist isn't as witty as George Shearing, let alone Tommy Flanagan. But they did the job.Bennett has a favourite encore of asking for the microphone to be switched off and singing a couple of tunes alone with Sharon, including a windswept Fly Me to the Moon. But when he came to Who Can I Turn To, he dramatised a setpiece of astonishing power. There were few songs of remorse or heartbreak in the set, and when he sang Autumn Leaves, the most sublime of sad reminiscences, he didn't really find the tears in it.