The Chinese are coming , not with tanks, but with electric hatchbacks called the Funky Kit and the Badger. And before you laugh, just remember we’ve seen this film before….
Back in the 60s and 70s, it was the Japanese. While we were soldiering on in our Austins, Triumphs and Marinas, wondering if this would be the year the heater worked, cars started quietly arriving from over the horizon. Datsuns. Toyotas. Mazdas. Cars with strange names, plastic dashboards and actual features.
They were cheaper, better made, and didn’t dissolve into rust by the first MOT. They weren’t sexy. No one pinned up posters of a Daihatsu. But they worked , and eventually, they won. First we mocked them, then we ignored them. Then they ate our lunch.
Now it’s happening again. This time the names are different — BYD, Ora, MG (reanimated in badge only) — but the story is the same. Affordable, tech-packed, oddly named EVs that are about to become very common on our roads.
Only this time, it’s not just about price and spec. These cars are software on wheels. Always connected, always listening, always collecting. Not just your Spotify playlist and sat nav routes, but potentially your messages, calls, emails, even your voice. And it’s not just conspiracy theorists sounding the alarm, it’s heads of state!
When a car is essentially a rolling smartphone made in a country with a very different view of personal data, the stakes are just a bit higher. The idea of a machine that quietly logs your life and sends it back to HQ isn’t science fiction anymore it’s the sales pitch. Welcome to 2025…
But here’s the thing – no kid grows up dreaming of a BYD. No one puts a poster of an Ora Funky Cat on their bedroom wall. No one, really no one falls in love with tech! They fall in love with cars. Real ones. With soul, sound, and personality. The stuff you feel in your chest when you turn the key, not swipe the app. The smell of old leather and petrol. The rattle. The roar. The mechanical handshake between driver and machine.
That’s why classic cars endure, because they’re not just modes of transport, they’re memories on wheels. They’re emotional. Flawed. Perfect.
At RNG Classics, we’re not anti-tech. We just know what lasts. And it’s not touchscreens or over-the-air updates. It’s the feeling of driving something real. Analogue. Honest.
So if the future is filled with whisper-quiet electric pods called “Dream Boats” and “Hedgehogs,” that’s fine. Let it come. We’ll be out on the B-roads, windows down, roof off V8 howling or a straight 6 growling, stereo off…because the engine makes better music.
And just for the record… we’ll still be dreaming of Porsches. Not portable apps on wheels!
