Consider a common challenge faced by owners of older vehicles. An emissions-related component fails, but replacement parts are no longer available through the manufacturer or suppliers.
You do the responsible thing and call the manufacturer, only to find the part has been discontinued. You try a specialist. No luck. You search owners’ clubs, online forums and the slightly mysterious corners of the internet where somebody in a shed in Lincolnshire appears to possess the last surviving example of everything.
Still nothing.
Under new Government proposals, this could leave you in a rather awkward position. Your car may be safe, well maintained, rarely used and capable of passing its MOT, including the emissions test. But if its original emissions equipment no longer works exactly as approved when the car was new, it could be considered non-compliant.
Some within the historic vehicle community have raised concerns that compliance could become more challenging where original emissions-related components are no longer available.
The Department for Transport is consulting on tougher rules covering in-use vehicle emissions. The aim is perfectly understandable: tackle poor maintenance, deliberate emissions tampering, defeat devices and commercial “delete” services.
The consultation is principally aimed at tackling emissions tampering, defeat devices and practices that deliberately circumvent environmental regulations.
But there is a large and important difference between deliberately defeating an emissions system and trying to keep an ageing car alive when the original components no longer exist.
That distinction matters even more now that the cars entering modern classic territory are far more complicated than the classics that came before them.
A carburettor can be rebuilt. A starter motor can be reconditioned. A skilled engineer can often repair, reproduce or adapt a mechanical component. It may involve tea, swearing and three weeks waiting for a parcel, but there’s usually a way forward.
Cars from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s are another matter. They arrived with catalytic converters, lambda sensors, electronic control units, EGR systems and increasingly manufacturer-specific software. Later vehicles introduced increasingly complex emissions technologies, including particulate filters, AdBlue systems and manufacturer-specific diagnostic software.
Now those cars are becoming classics.
They are being preserved, restored and cherished by owners who remember them from new, coveted them as teenagers or simply recognise that yesterday’s ordinary cars are tomorrow’s cultural history. The difficulty is that many are now well beyond the period in which manufacturers are expected to continue supplying parts.
When a mechanical component disappears, the classic car industry can often create an alternative. When a coded control unit, sensor or software package disappears, things become much harder. The replacement may need type approval, manufacturer-controlled programming or calibration equipment that is no longer supported.
This raises questions about how compliance could be demonstrated when certain parts, software or approved repair methods are no longer available.
Imagine owning a cherished performance saloon from the late 1990s. It has covered modest mileage, lives in a garage and emerges mainly for summer drives, club events and the annual nervous journey to the MOT station. An emissions-related control unit fails. The manufacturer no longer supplies it, no approved aftermarket replacement exists and the original software is obsolete.
Although the vehicle may otherwise be well maintained and used only occasionally, the failure of a single specialist component could create challenges when seeking to maintain compliance.
Some industry bodies have questioned how vehicles in this situation should be managed where no approved replacement solution exists.
That would be a remarkable outcome for any environmental policy: disposing of an otherwise usable vehicle because a single sensor is unavailable.
The cars most at risk are likely to be the young-timers, the vehicles enthusiasts already value as classics, even if they haven’t yet reached formal historic status. Think hot hatchbacks, sports coupés, Japanese performance cars, luxury saloons and the first generation of increasingly sophisticated SUVs.
They’re old enough for parts supply to have dried up, but new enough to contain complicated emissions equipment. They fall into the gap between straightforward historic machinery and modern cars still supported by manufacturers.
It is a gap that regulation needs to recognise.
Footman James recognises the importance of measures intended to reduce vehicle emissions. At the same time, the consultation has prompted discussion within the historic vehicle sector about how proposed rules might apply to older vehicles where parts availability becomes an issue.
Several organisations representing historic vehicle owners have suggested that consideration may be needed for vehicles where approved repairs are not reasonably available.
That wouldn’t give owners permission to do whatever they fancied. Vehicles would still need to be safe, properly maintained and capable of meeting reasonable emissions standards. It would simply acknowledge that exact factory compliance becomes difficult when the factory stopped supplying the necessary part 15 years ago.
One area of debate is how regulations should distinguish between deliberate emissions tampering and repairs undertaken to maintain vehicles where original components can no longer be sourced.
Those are not the same thing.
The consultation closes at 11:59pm on 6 September 2026, and provides an opportunity for vehicle owners, clubs, restorers, manufacturers and industry representatives to share their perspectives.
As the consultation progresses, stakeholders across the industry will be interested to see how environmental objectives are balanced with the practical realities of maintaining older and emerging classic vehicles.
Please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/in-use-emissions-of-road-vehicles-regulating-environmental-impacts/regulating-environmental-impact-of-in-use-emissions-of-road-vehicles and make your voice heard.
