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Mr Merson

April 30, 2017

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

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Fitting up the blue piping

April 18, 2017

[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

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The TR7 is now complete

April 14, 2017

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With the newly refurbished radiator now fitted and functional there was just one final piece to the puzzle. A good clean and detail to remove

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Fitting the Maserati Merak Interior

May 2, 2017

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.

Building up the re-chromed MGYT grille

May 1, 2017

 

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.

Mr Merson

April 30, 2017

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”

The Jensen Chassis Is Painted

April 28, 2017

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.

Seam Sealing our Jensen 541S Chassis

April 28, 2017

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.

Jensen 541S Chassis in Primer

April 27, 2017

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.

The broken Maserati Merak seat bracket cover

April 26, 2017

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!!

 

 

Mr Goldsmith – Ipswich, Suffolk

April 25, 2017

“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”

Safe arrivals galore this week…

April 24, 2017

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.

Cleaning up the E-Type seat frames

April 21, 2017

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.

 

Bye Bye Scotland, Hello England

April 21, 2017

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.

Recommissioning our 1974 Triumph Spitfire

April 21, 2017

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.

Fitting the new bumpers and over-riders

April 19, 2017

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.

Behind the scenes of our 1982 Triumph TR7 photo shoot

April 19, 2017

[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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Fitting up the blue piping

April 18, 2017

[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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Uncovering the rot in the front inner wing

April 18, 2017

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.

Jaguar V12 E-Type Paint Preparation

April 17, 2017

We are now preparing the bodywork ready for paint. At this stage we are expecting the preparation to be approximately 150-180 hours.

Coming soon to Bridge Classic Cars: HMC Sportscar

April 14, 2017

With the owner’s of this stunning HMC making the permanent move to Australia later in the year, we are pleased to have it in with us to carry out some remedial work before she makes the big trip. Work will begin at the beginning of May 2017. More information to follow.

Holmes Motor Company Limited was founded in 1984 by brothers Graham and Peter Holmes, trading as HMC sports cars.

HMC sports cars manufactured Sports cars inspired by the Austin Healey, although the body shape was similar to the original Healey the car was an extremely capable modern sports car in its own right and was widely regarded as the finest in its class, so much so Geoffrey Healey endorsed it.

Unfortunately due to a dispute between the Healey family and Jensen in 1989 over the ownership of the Healey trademark, the name was withdrawn. Despite this draw back the HMC had excellent reviews from magazines such as Motor Sport and Performance Car and television programmes including Top Gear. Through a network of dealerships the HMC sold very well worldwide until 2001 when parts supplies finally dried up.  The company was forced to evolve so with Peter managing customer support for HMC Healeys and with a slight name change Graham and then son Gresham were flown to Sao Paulo to help with the development a new Brazilian sports car called the Lobini.  This is the Dream of Portuguese businessman Jose Orlando Lobo and designer Fabio  Birolini to bring Brazil to the forefront of sports car manufacture. The Name Lobini is taken from the names of Jose and Fabio and when translated means small Wolf, the model name H1 is an acknowledgement of the work done by Holmes motor company.  The Lobini H1 is now in production and selling well in Brazil and America and will soon be available in Europe through lifestyle automotive in spring 2007. 

In 2004 Holmes motor company completed the first Holmes Spyder 550, they continue producing this model whilst developing others such as the RS Spyder and the Speedster.

Land Rover Series 1 body panel repairs

April 14, 2017

A very challenging task and one that we can’t just jump in head first. One of the toughest materials to work with, we have taken on the task of repairing the Birmabright body panels from a Land Rover Series 1.

We have removed the dents from the panels.

Source: Wikipedia

Birmabright is best known as the material used in the body of the Land Rover from its launch in April 1948, and in a few other classic British vehicles.

The doors, boot lid and bonnet of most Rover P4 models were also Birmabright, however towards the end of production this was changed to steel to reduce costs.

An early use in the 1930s was for the bodywork of the land speed record car, Thunderbolt. Also used for the bodywork of Bluebird K7 used for the Coniston speed record attempt by the late Donald Campbell. The well known Laurent Giles designed 46ft sailboat Beyond was built of riveted sheets of Birmabright and circumnavigated in the early 1950s by Tom and Ann Worth. The hull proved corrosion resistant but required re-riveting later due to crystallisation of the rivet heads, and lasted well until being sunk in the Caribbean as an artificial diving reef in the 1980s.

The TR7 is now complete

April 14, 2017

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With the newly refurbished radiator now fitted and functional there was just one final piece to the puzzle.

A good clean and detail to remove the last of the paint shop dust.

Rich from Suffolk Detailing came in to assist yesterday afternoon and after a few hours we are back in the workshops, covered over ready for the Bridge Classic Cars Suffolk photoshoot early next week…

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Refitting the newly refurbished radiator

April 13, 2017

Our Triumph TR7 radiator has now been fully rebuilt and tested by the guys down at Ipswich based radiator specialists Sheldrake & Wells.

As always, a super fast service and prompt delivery means we were able to remove it, rebuild it and refit it in a number of days.

Our 1967 Jaguar E-Type is now black

April 13, 2017

It is always very rewarding, after months of preparation to see our car go into paint.

We can now embark on the reassembly of all of the refurbished and new parts that have been the focus of our attention over the passed few months.

When we look at the rebuilt engine and gearbox we can now see how it is going to compliment the beautiful black paintwork.

 

Jaguar E-Type arriving soon to Bridge Classic Cars

April 12, 2017

I was put on to our latest acquisition by my old friend Brian Farquar of Abelour in Bonny Scotland. Brian finds me lots of cars and is a keen collector himself.

He loves his Minis and his old Fords and they are immaculate. Show winners.

Brian can describe a car and we would always buy on his recommendations.

He called me about a part restored Series 1 E-Type Jaguar 4.2 in Fort William.

I called the given number and spoke in length to its owner Ray Thomas. It was a story I have heard so many times but in Ray’s case the skills he had learnt was as bigger part as the car itself if not more.

Ray sent me pictures of the car and the main problem he had was busy in the summer and E-Type work in the winter.

Some of you may know. Winter in the north of Scotland is cold. Very very cold, snowy, icy, rainy and very very cold and certainly not a time or place to practice your spraying skills.

The paint micro blistered and the realisation set in that the car needed to be sold.

After some too-ing and fro-ing we did a deal and car was bought unseen. Ray knows his car.

We will get it back to the workshops for a full appraisal and get it into the Bridge projects section and of course look for a lucky new owner in the next couple of weeks.

Blasting more of our E-Type components

April 11, 2017

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With the return of our painted Jaguar E-Type body imminent, Tommy has been working through some of the final pieces that require his attention.

Today, he has been busy blasting some of the smaller components as well as piecing together the recently acquired and very rare pedal box set up.

Once blasted, the pieces have undergone a single layer of primer. These will now be finished in gloss black.

Amongst the assortment we have: the pedals, blanking plates for the left to right conversion, the prop shaft, radius arm to body braces and accelerator pedal box.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”11552,11553,11554,11555,11556,11557,11558,11559,11560,11561,11562,11563,11564,11551″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Bridge Classic Cars are award winning Classic Car Restoration and Maintenance specialists. Your pride and joy is in safe hands with our expert Classic Car Technicians. Take a look at our awards here.

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