Managing Director – Bridge Classic Cars
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During our recent post on our visit to Morston Hall we mentioned meeting Bernard and his wife who had, at home, a Mk1 Ford Cortina. Bernard told me
Extensive work was needed on our Jaguar E-Type seat brackets, so much so that a triple coating process was needed to be carried out to
Here we have the first stages of fitting the new grey carpet set to the front Daisy, our 1989 Volkswagen T25 camper.
What better combination than Indi Verde green against the stunning red leather. It is not so much noticeable on the seats but the entire interior
Can you re-chrome a classic car grille as one piece? The answer is yes… …but we wouldn’t recommend it. If you want to do
Received a lovely email this evening from George Merson… “Craig. I just looked at all of the restoration pictures of “Finnigen”, my 51 MG TD. I must
Here we have the first pictures of our 1973 Jaguar E-Type V12 Series 3 as it returned this week from our paint shop, having undergone a full
With all of the chassis preparation now complete, the gloss black finish has now been applied. We can now move forward with refitting the body
The final task to undertake before the chassis is finished in it’s new gloss black coating is to seam seal all of the edges. Good
It has probably seemed a little quiet recently on our 1960 Jensen 541S project but be assured we’ve been very busy making the final tweaks
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During our recent post on our visit to Morston Hall we mentioned meeting Bernard and his wife who had, at home, a Mk1 Ford Cortina. Bernard told me
A great example of when having the right tools operated by the right people can overcome anything… Here we have one of the L bracket
I’m guessing he wasn’t out picking her his full ‘bulk’ shop for the week but here we have this brilliant track day Caterham parked up
“Just a quick message to let you know about the red MGB GT you put a wiring loom in for me. I would just like
Three safe arrivals in the same week. Baby Loick joined us Monday. And our Jaguar E-Type and concours Austin Morris Mini Clubman arrived on Tuesday.
Congratulations to Bridge owner Craig and his partner Lyndsay on the safe arrival of Loick Ashley on the 23rd April. Weighing in at 7lbs 4.5
It’s lovely to see all of the local classics out and about when the sun is shining. In today, we’ve had a lovely little Triumph
We have now started blasting the original Jaguar E-Type seat frames. The seat runners were particularly challenging. With years and years of crud (technical term)
We are very excited to see our newest member of the Bridge family leaving it’s home in Scotland to make it’s way down to our
Having been overlooked in a garden in Ipswich for many years, we have just been to collect our latest project, a 1974 Triumph Spitfire. Now
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During our recent post on our visit to Morston Hall we mentioned meeting Bernard and his wife who had, at home, a Mk1 Ford Cortina. Bernard told me
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Arriving soon to our Ipswich workshops, our beautiful 1982 Austin Mini Clubman in concours condition. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”11922,11923,11924,11925,11926,11927,11928,11929,11930,11931,11932,11933″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Although the car has benefited hugely from being safely stored away all year round the chrome bumper and over-riders have started to show signs of
The sun was shining this afternoon outside Bridge Classic Cars and Bridge MOT HQ so John decided to work outside on our 1971 MGB Roadster.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Although this incredible structure over the River Orwell is one of Suffolk’s largest landmarks, it’s surprisingly difficult to get a car photographed beside the Orwell
Due to our busy paint shop the full respray on our US 1973 Jaguar E-Type V12 has taken a bit of a back seat. Here
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Today, Dave has been concentrating on fitting up the blue leather piping around the front and rear wings of our 1949 MGYT. With lots of
Work continues today on the paint preparation as we build up and re-shape to give our E-Type roadster the perfect lines once again.
As you can see from the pictures, we have a lot to tackle with this one. Our 1969 MGBGT came in to us a couple
We are now preparing the bodywork ready for paint. At this stage we are expecting the preparation to be approximately 150-180 hours.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During our recent post on our visit to Morston Hall we mentioned meeting Bernard and his wife who had, at home, a Mk1 Ford Cortina.
Bernard told me as a part of his retirement that he travels around Suffolk and visits our churches and photographs his car with the church and writes about the experience.
We are very pleased to be able to share with you their fascinating story. All of the experiences you read of below are from Bernard Butler. Bridge Classic Cars do not claim ownership in any way.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title=”Suffolk Churches – a series of journeys in a Mk 1 Cortina – by Bernard Butler”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Chapter 4
After a freezing night in early March 2006, the morning began sunny enough, so at 10.30am I set off to visit five churches to the south of the Worlingworth area in a region enclosed by the B1120 to the north, the B1077 to the west, the B1078 to the south, and a line due south of Worlingworth to the east.
First stop was Framsden – a sleepy hamlet with a fairly large church. The interesting lych-gate into the Churchyard promised much, but unfortunately the Church was locked (key-holders listed).
On next to Helmingham, a majestic church attached to the Estate. It has many fine 17th century memorials inside, and also boasts a vaulted room below (not open). Definitely a church to visit.
Nice picture too!
Through the countryside to Otley, where the church nestles hidden away at the end of a pretty driveway.
Another glorious Suffolk tower – the Cortina looks so small in comparison – so I took a second picture at this location.
The porch is on an equally grand scale – so much so that they have turned part of it into a toilet!
Another unusual but welcoming feature is the disabled access ramp just inside the South Porch entrance.
Striking north-east now to begin the return, the trip continued along virtually vehicle-free country roads to Cretingham.
This was the second church to be found locked, but again key-holders information was given for those who wanted to see inside.
As I had visited this church on a previous occasion – a Gardens and Classic Cars Show in 2005 – I was happy to take the photo and move on.
Continuing through lovely countryside I tracked north to reach Earl Soham, the last stop of this particular journey.
Here I met my first and only other person from the whole trip. He turned out to be the key-holder, and he was opening all the doors to let the church get an airing.
The main feature of interest to me was the magnificent 17th century pew-end carvings. All sorts of people, demons and animals are represented, and it is interesting to speculate whether the heads were all carved by one person: clearly the pew-ends themselves are the work of several carpenters, as you would expect – close inspection showing not only subtle variations in the intricate design, but also varying levels of skill.
I assume the heads are dowelled onto the top of the pew-ends rather than each end being completed from a single piece of solid wood.
I was back home before 1.00pm after a trip of three churches open out of five – about par.
The journey was remarkable for the distinct lack of traffic throughout, and with the Cortina’s heater going full-blast the views made this a very enjoyable trip on a sunny Friday morning.
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Route Details
Worlingworth to Ashfield-Cum-Thorpe, via Bedfield.
West along the B1120, then left onto the B1077.
Immediately the B1077 bears right but I went straight ahead onto a road marked “unsuitable for HGVs”.
Right at the T junction into Framsden – along here the church is on the left. Park in the road as the lane to the church is single track and difficult to turn in.
Continue along until meeting the B1077 again. Turn left and keep on where the B1079 branches off to the left. Helmingham church is immediately on the right – easy off-road parking.
Return to the nearby B1079 turn-off, and take this road this time – to Ottley.
The church is towards the end of the built-up area on the right – nice driveway entrance to park beside the church.
Turn left out of the churchyard and take the immediate right-turn down a country lane towards Clopton Green.
At the T junction turn left, marked Cretingham.
After a little over a mile take a left-turn signposted Cretingham, and then right at the T junction.
This brings you into Cretingham. Continue through the village and the church appears on the left as you descend the hill – easy parking.
Continue down the hill and turn right at the T junction. At the next T junction after a mile, turn left again – this brings you into Earl Soham.
At the village green triangle keep to the right and make a right-turn onto the main road (B1120). Go through the village and the church appears on the right. Park by taking the grass centred track (see photo) directly towards the tower, or park at the bottom.
On leaving the church turn right onto the B1120 again and shortly take the left turn towards Bedfield when the main road bends sharply to the right.
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Extensive work was needed on our Jaguar E-Type seat brackets, so much so that a triple coating process was needed to be carried out to ensure the perfect end result.
Here they are in the copper plated stage.
When we next see them they’ll be 100% perfect and finished in polished chrome.
Here we have the first stages of fitting the new grey carpet set to the front Daisy, our 1989 Volkswagen T25 camper.
What better combination than Indi Verde green against the stunning red leather. It is not so much noticeable on the seats but the entire interior set up has been stitched in green to match the car colour. It is more noticeable on the rear cover.
Ordinarily the rear column on the Merak’s are covered in a plain leather/vinyl cover. From new, this column was not built symmetrically, after careful consideration and a lot of research we felt that a plain cover was not striking enough and would highlight the fact that it was not symmetrical. You can see what we mean by google many images of other Maserati Meraks…beautiful but in our opinion not beautiful enough.
We kept with the original black finish but instead, we diamond stitched our column in green and the pictures below speak for themselves.
Original chrome taken from a 1949 MG YT
Can you re-chrome a classic car grille as one piece? The answer is yes…
…but we wouldn’t recommend it.
If you want to do a job right, do it properly. It may seem like a daunting task stripping a grille like this into individual pieces but it is absolutely worth it for the final finish. Ensure you have a piece of paper and a pen with you and simply jot down everything you take off so you know exactly where each slat goes when you are ready to refit. Drawings, notes, measurements, whatever it takes to make your life easy during refit is worth it.
Here we have the finish front grille. We totally stripped the components and rebuilt once chromed and polished. The brand new material surround has been refitted so it’s ready to be fitted back up to the car.
Received a lovely email this evening from George Merson…
“Craig. I just looked at all of the restoration pictures of “Finnigen”, my 51 MG TD. I must say you did a fantastic restoration, the car looks absolutely fantastic. It should be good for another 60 years. I do hope the new owner appreciates all the work you and your employees put into the restoration. And of course I hope you made a good profit.
Take care. George”
Here we have the first pictures of our 1973 Jaguar E-Type V12 Series 3 as it returned this week from our paint shop, having undergone a full respray.
With all of the chassis preparation now complete, the gloss black finish has now been applied.
We can now move forward with refitting the body that we removed earlier in the build. Once this is fitted we can progress to the paint shop for the fill respray back to the original, factory set, colour.
The final task to undertake before the chassis is finished in it’s new gloss black coating is to seam seal all of the edges. Good seam sealing will prolong the life of a vehicle after restoration. Virtually all rust problems on a car will start in the seams.
Here is a very informative article written by Brian Martin of Auto Body Store in Southampton, New Jersey. He explains the importance of seam sealing a car and demonstrates the best methods for applying seam sealer to body panels.
It has probably seemed a little quiet recently on our 1960 Jensen 541S project but be assured we’ve been very busy making the final tweaks to the chassis ready for it to be painted. Before the chassis entered our paint shops it was so full on for Tommy and Asa working on both the chassis and body shell so the time in our paint shop was also going to seem a little steadier for us.
The chassis is now primed and ready to be seam-sealed before it will be finished in gloss painted. After which, the body shell will be re-fitted ready to be prepared for paint.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During our recent post on our visit to Morston Hall we mentioned meeting Bernard and his wife who had, at home, a Mk1 Ford Cortina.
Bernard told me as a part of his retirement that he travels around Suffolk and visits our churches and photographs his car with the church and writes about the experience.
We are very pleased to be able to share with you their fascinating story. All of the experiences you read of below are from Bernard Butler. Bridge Classic Cars do not claim ownership in any way.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title=”Suffolk Churches – a series of journeys in a Mk 1 Cortina – by Bernard Butler”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Chapter 3
The third journey began on a dull morning in late November – Tuesday the 29th – but the forecast was for improving weather so I headed out south-west beyond the A1120 to find our first church at Gosbeck – and what an interesting church it turned out to be.
The tower, instead of forming the west end of the church, is where the south porch would be expected, so the entrance through the tower – often no longer in use in many other churches today – serves both purposes simultaneously.
On to Ashbocking, which did not look too promising from the map, being well off the road and set far into the estate lands of the owners of the great Hall. I succeeded in stampeding the horses running loose in a field – well they probably were excited about seeing a Mk 1! – but no-one came to warn me off so I found the Church alright, and I was delighted to find it was open.
This ancient building was first built for the Ash and then the Bocking dynasties, and for me its most interesting feature is a 14th century recess in the south wall which must relate to the Hall families, although there is no inscription. It is quite beautiful and puzzling at the same time, with a gorgeous window in its centre. I have never seen anything like it.
Another interesting feature is the re-instatement of a Norman font, thrown away some hundreds of years ago and replaced, and then rediscovered by chance during some excavations in the first part of the 1800s, by which time its antiquity was appreciated, so they threw out the one they had then!
This latter font was described very scathingly in 1814 as being awful, so all has turned out for the best!
Next came Pettaugh church, attractively set behind trees on a slight incline.
However, it was shut, and the book didn’t have much to say about its features, so I made do with a rather nice picture in the sunshine.
Disappointment continued as the next Church was also closed, although I had expected it this time. Winston is a tiny hamlet to the south of Debenham and once again the Church appeared to have been built for, or at least maintained by, the owners of the Hall. Not much in the book again, although it is a pretty setting, but the Tudor brick-built south porch is attractive, and evocative of distant times.
Finally on to Debenham itself – by far the largest Church today.
Open although deserted, it was thoroughly explored and made for an interesting 30 minutes visit.
I ran the Cortina up the pathway that the hearses take and managed a decent photograph before hastily backing out again!
Back home again for a late lunch to complete this third tour of 2005 – the final one for this first year, and hopefully many more to come exploring lovely Suffolk.
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A great example of when having the right tools operated by the right people can overcome anything…
Here we have one of the L bracket covers from our 1975 Maserati Merak front seats. Unless you can find a Merak that is being broken (which we only know of one currently) these brackets are no longer available.
The mechanism is still working perfectly, it’s just the outer plastic cover that has not survived the test of time.
However, Tommy has yet again come to the rescue. We believe everyone needs a Tommy!
With a little TLC and some fibre glass he has managed to rescue the piece.
It may not be the most visible part of the interior and removing the damaged piece may not have caused any issues, aesthetically, but we are back to full speed now!!
I’m guessing he wasn’t out picking her his full ‘bulk’ shop for the week but here we have this brilliant track day Caterham parked up outside Makro in Ipswich on Sunday morning.
“Just a quick message to let you know about the red MGB GT you put a wiring loom in for me. I would just like to say how happy and pleased I am with the work undertaken. Its very nice for everything to be working on the car and not to jiggle the wires round anymore, to get lights working. The service was fantastic and allowing me to drop and pick the car up on a Saturday morning was very good of you. I would have no hesitation in recommending you. Many Thanks”
Three safe arrivals in the same week.
Baby Loick joined us Monday.
And our Jaguar E-Type and concours Austin Morris Mini Clubman arrived on Tuesday.
Brought to our Ipswich workshops from the north of Scotland by Ronnie; the owner of Karr Solutions.
We use Ronnie for all our vehicle shipments that don’t require our covered trailer.
Ronnie can be contacted on 07738 274660 should you require his expert services.
Congratulations to Bridge owner Craig and his partner Lyndsay on the safe arrival of Loick Ashley on the 23rd April. Weighing in at 7lbs 4.5 oz.
Here at Bridge we like always look forward and obviously what every boy needs is a smart set of wheels.
Welcome to the family Loick, your chariot awaits
It’s lovely to see all of the local classics out and about when the sun is shining. In today, we’ve had a lovely little Triumph Stag in for a MOT.
We have now started blasting the original Jaguar E-Type seat frames.
The seat runners were particularly challenging. With years and years of crud (technical term) built up inside they were near on impossible to release but eventually they came free and we able to be fixed up, repaired, cleaned up and painted.
We are very excited to see our newest member of the Bridge family leaving it’s home in Scotland to make it’s way down to our Suffolk workshops.
This stunning 1966 Jaguar E-Type will soon be treated to a brand new re-spray before we complete the rebuild that the previous owner had started so brilliantly for us.
We can not wait for her to arrive with us at the early part of next week.
Having been overlooked in a garden in Ipswich for many years, we have just been to collect our latest project, a 1974 Triumph Spitfire.
Now ready to be brought back to life for a family member she is in with us for a full health check and assessment. The car will be recommissioned to MOT standard before we look at future works and a possible sympathetic restoration.
This will be a stage restoration and strict budgets will be adhered to. A very exciting project and we can’t wait to get her back on the road.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During our recent post on our visit to Morston Hall we mentioned meeting Bernard and his wife who had, at home, a Mk1 Ford Cortina.
Bernard told me as a part of his retirement that he travels around Suffolk and visits our churches and photographs his car with the church and writes about the experience.
We are very pleased to be able to share with you their fascinating story. All of the experiences you read of below are from Bernard Butler. Bridge Classic Cars do not claim ownership in any way.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title=”Suffolk Churches – a series of journeys in a Mk 1 Cortina – by Bernard Butler”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Chapter 2
The second tour began on a sunny August morning. It was to be a journey of only modest ambition, taking in four very local churches.
It was disappointing to find the first church locked (Bedfield) but it will be revisited later. It is in the Benefice so we have sung there before on several occasions.
Monk Soham church was open. It is also in the Benefice and had been visited before.
It is very secretively hidden away behind churchyard trees (see below), but a long-range view can be obtained from the south aspect (see second picture). Travellers on foot are offered a most attractive and unusual footpath approach from this position.
Kenton church is approached impressively from a due west compass position, and the tower looked magnificent in the morning sunlight. I was very pleased with this photograph.
Sadly I encountered another locked church at Bedingfield – maybe it was too early in the day – but it will be revisited. The trees covered the site so well that this is the only picture I could achieve that included the building and the car, and some imagination is required! The Cortina looks nice anyway!
Bedingfield church was revisited on November 14th 2005 and this time it was open. It is an interesting ancient building with many references to the generations of the Bedingfield family line who gave the village its name.
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Arriving soon to our Ipswich workshops, our beautiful 1982 Austin Mini Clubman in concours condition.
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Although the car has benefited hugely from being safely stored away all year round the chrome bumper and over-riders have started to show signs of wear.
Over the years we have collected lots of new and rare parts here at Bridge Classic Cars and it just so happens that on the shelf we had a brand new, original rear bumper. Unfortunately we did not have the over-riders.
Ordinarily, replacing the bumpers and over-riders with new would be very easy as we are very lucky in the UK to have plenty of MG parts suppliers. On this occasion we have been able to source a left handed rear over-rider but according to various contacts the tooling used to manufacture the right handed over-rider is faulty, so there is a shortage of this particular item which is a bit of a pain for us.
After a lot of calling around we have managed to secure a right handed over-rider with rubbers so we are now just awaiting the arrival and the new parts will all be fitted back up and the car will soon be complete.
The sun was shining this afternoon outside Bridge Classic Cars and Bridge MOT HQ so John decided to work outside on our 1971 MGB Roadster.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Although this incredible structure over the River Orwell is one of Suffolk’s largest landmarks, it’s surprisingly difficult to get a car photographed beside the Orwell Bridge.
We were all set for a 9am start with a fantastic location all lined up and the necessary permissions all in place to carry out our latest photo shoot. Unfortunately after the first few shots Jason from Sugar and Spice Photography wasn’t too happy with how it looked on camera. Through the lens the bridge looked too far away so we had to think fast on a Plan B.
The Orwell Bridge was a crucial part of this shoot. It was opened to road traffic in 1982 which is the very same year our Triumph TR7 was first registered on the UK roads. It seemed too good a connection to pass up the opportunity.
Our photo shoots are very well known for including some of Suffolk most iconic landmarks and we are continuing to look for more for future shoots so if you have any suggestions please feel free to email them in.
Here was have a behind the scene look whilst we eagerly await the professionals from Jason.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”11804,11805,11806,11807,11808,11809,11810,11811,11812,11813,11803″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Plan B was the very well known Orwell Bridge lay-by and our luck was in as we had the lay-by to ourselves for the morning.
We even got spotted by Gary…
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Due to our busy paint shop the full respray on our US 1973 Jaguar E-Type V12 has taken a bit of a back seat.
Here are the latest pictures from the strip down.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Today, Dave has been concentrating on fitting up the blue leather piping around the front and rear wings of our 1949 MGYT.
With lots of blue fabric options on the market as well as a great choice of dark greys and blacks in leather this turned out to be more of a challenge than we expected.
We looked through lots of samples from various manufacturers and finally decided on the dark blue leather option that you see here. Now it is in position, we are very happy that the research really paid off.
We’ve seen a number of the MGY’s with black piping but that’s not what we wanted. In our opinion, settling for black, or even dark grey would not have been right.
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Work continues today on the paint preparation as we build up and re-shape to give our E-Type roadster the perfect lines once again.
As you can see from the pictures, we have a lot to tackle with this one.
Our 1969 MGBGT came in to us a couple of weeks ago after being involved in a minor accident which damaged the front grille and chrome bumper. By stripping the components ready for the body repair to commence we have exposed a lot of the rot around the front inner wing and headlight surround. This is something we will have to address before carrying out our intended work.
We are now preparing the bodywork ready for paint. At this stage we are expecting the preparation to be approximately 150-180 hours.
