The class of 1994 was brilliant for car classifieds

SO THE Champion's 18 this week. Your favourite local paper can, among other things, legally get the drinks in without worrying about being asked for its ID by the bloke behind the bar.

I've been celebrating the anniversary by working away on the special birthday supplement you'll find delivered with this week's edition - a task which meant trawling through the thousands of papers we've put out over the years, to uncover all those juicy front page splashes hidden away in our secretive and extensive archives.

It's a pity then I ended up hooked on a rather different bit of Champion history - the car classifieds. If, like me, you're one of those weirdos who still finds the Auto Trader strangely absorbing (and I don't mean the coarse, inky paper it's printed on either), then you'd love looking through the secondhand bargains Champ readers were prepared to flog you all those years ago.

Yes, it's true that when the first ever Champion was published the number one single was Mariah Carey's tragically bad cover of Without You, but I would have put up with that to buy a clean Capri Ghia for £550. The same car today, now considered a bit of classic, is four or five times that. You could take your pick from a host of very tidy original Minis for between £500 and £600, and - if you weren't that desperate to get anywhere in a hurry - a slightly ropey Citroen 2CV with eight months' MOT was yours for £250. If only there was a way of somehow transporting these then-unwanted motors from 1994 to 2012, because all these old stagers are very sought after these days.

Even more annoyingly cheap were 1994's brand new arrivals. Would sir be tempted, for instance, by a lovely Alfa 155, which in The Champion's first week was yours for just £13,577? The same money these days would struggle to get you into a mid-range (and much smaller) MiTo. I know the class of 1994 were only just being introduced to electric windows and airbags, but they still got a lot more for their money then you do now. You could also experience the thrills of driving a Fiat Coupe or a Volkswagen Corrado without having to peel the boiled sweets out of the ashtrays. Then again, if you'd ventured into a Ford showroom at the time there's a very good chance you'd have ended up lumbered with an Escort.

So to celebrate The Champion's big anniversary I've decided things were better in the good old days. Maybe I'll think differently in 18 years' time...