After all, owning classic and vintage cars requires far greater patience, gumption and involvement than collecting stamps. Not surprisingly, these guys are sticklers for jargon: Call a classic a vintage or vice versa and you will get a earful.

Although both words may mean the same thing to the man in the street, a vintage refers to a car that was built before 1940, while classics are those made after that but are at least 35 years old.

As of March 31, there were 212 classic and 117 vintage cars here, compared to 515,000 cars which are below three years old.

Read the full story on who these collectors are in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times' Life!