If there’s one thing that really gets me down, it’s petty-minded, short-sighted opinions spouted by people who know nothing.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on some forums, where vehicles will get ripped to shreds and given a virtual mauling just because it has the wrong badge on the bonnet.

Some Land Rover owners are often very guilty of it, belittling anything that doesn’t have a green oval on it and sadly believing that Land Rovers really are the best 4x4xfar. Nonsense. I rate them in some departments, but they’re absolutely woeful in others. So are many of the Land Rover’s rivals. The perfect vehicle just doesn’t exist. To be honest, owners of non-Land Rover 4x4s can be just as petty. It can get very tiresome.

Possibly not the best 4x4xfar

Ford owners are also good at it, slagging off Subarus and other fast cars as hopeless, when it’s not like anything with a blue oval badge on it is really anything special. Then there’s the age old MG vs Triumph debate…

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a problem with people being passionate about the cars they own, but when it gets to football-esque slagging matches, I shall say NOOOOO!

Being involved with French classics is very refreshing. There’s a camaraderie amongst owners of French vehicles which is sadly lacking elswhere. You don’t see 2CV owners slagging off Renault 4s or vice-versa and the owner of an Alpine-Renault may take a strong interest in a Panhard or Peugeot.

I wish there was more of that in the British classic car scene. Tolerance doesn’t require much effort. We’re all in the historic movement together, so why not just be nice? Also, why restrict yourself to just one make? Yeah, I know I’ve got an entirely Citroën fleet at the moment, but that’s actually surprisingly rare. I happen to like the way Citroën used to make cars but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate other makes.

Just bear in mind how the wider world sees you if you start slagging off other cars. No-one thinks it’s clever and you’ll strike most people as the sort of person who’s brain cells are so few that they might start getting lonely. One car is not crap just because you happen to like another one. Now man up and let’s see more tolerance in 2013!

A Hippy.