Behind The Scenes: 1998 BMW Z3M
On a brisk winter’s morning, we headed out to Aurora in Ipswich to shoot our dazzling and understated Imola Red 1998 BMW Z3M. We had
On a brisk winter’s morning, we headed out to Aurora in Ipswich to shoot our dazzling and understated Imola Red 1998 BMW Z3M. We had
Last night our 1979 Chevrolet Corvette was won by Lee Bache with his lucky ticket number 387. Our beautiful Red beast will be off to
Yesterday we delivered our Jaguar XJ6 to winner Nick Nicola, pictured with his son, George. Nick won with lucky ticket number 664. Our VW Beetle
Here at Bridge Classic Cars, we’re a close-knit team and its not uncommon to have multiple family members, close friends and couples working together. Lydia
It goes without saying, 2020 has been tough for everyone but there have been some positives! Bridge Classic Cars turned 16, we welcomed in more
What a way to celebrate Christmas! Last night we had a very festive live draw where we announced the lucky winners of two of competition
It’s Monday, meaning it’s time for another Meet The Team instalment! This week we chat to Mauro about what got him into cars.
Congratulations to our MGB winner, Tony Lund! Tony is out of the country for several months with work, so his friend Phillip has very kindly
Congratulations to our latest Mini winner! James Colwell won our beautiful 1979 Mini Clubman with his lucky ticket number 850! We’re delighted that this beautiful
Congratulations to Sam Holmes from Cheshire who won our stunning 1998 Jaguar XJR Supercharged. We delivered Sam’s new Jaguar XJR to him this weekend. What
Congratulations to the winner of our 1999 Mercedes 280SL, Robert Read! Roberts lucky ticket number was 131. We rang him live on the draw night
Last week, we had a hat trick give away! Three cars and three winners certainly kept the live draw exciting. A big congratulations to James
Recently we’d looked at buying these two Rovers P5B’s as seen below. Could a few new rovers be on our horizon? We certainly wouldn’t be
We’ve recently welcomed a 1994 Land Rover – Range Rover TDI into the Bridge Classic Car family. There’s a lot of work to do on
We’re still got our beautiful 1999 Mercedes 280SL up for grabs and tonight is the Double Your Odds draw! You can check that out this
Our trim experts have been focusing on making sure our new competition car, the 1972 MGB Blaze Orange Roadster, is all up to scratch. The
Our 1998 BMW Z3 M Roadster has been sent to the Paint Shop to be stripped down for respray, primed, bumps, and scrapes fixed and
Our new competition car is a smart 1998 Jaguar XJR Supercharged in a moody navy blue and could be yours for under £10. Don’t let
This week we announced the two lucky winners of our competition. Karl Reilly from Essex won the 1968 Triumph TR3 with his lucky ticket number
We were recently mentioned in Vision Suffolk’s magazine in an article about two recent Mini winners. Chris Allitt and Courtney Barker both won Minis as
“We all buy a ticket in the hope we win, but we never expect to win.” Our most recent winner, Karl Reilly from Essex, was
Congratulations to the winner of our 1979 Ford Escort RS2000, Mike Hill We delivered the RS2000 up to Mike in Manchester today. Our covered vehicle
Our gorgeous 1957 Triumph TR3 is the latest classic car available to be won. Our competitions give you the chance of winning a classic car
Oscar Casco was the latest winner with us. He won our 1985 Lotus Esprit Turbo with ticket number 394! Take a look at the video
Congratulations to Chris Allitt, winner of the 1974 Austin Mini. Mauro delivered the car to Chris on Saturday. Its fair to say Chris was stunned
Bridge Classic Cars would like to thank everyone who entered our 1964 MGB Roadster competition. This donation was made on behalf of each and every
The story behind Bridge Classic Cars Competitions has just been featured in Suffolk Magazine. Read the article here.
On a brisk winter’s morning, we headed out to Aurora in Ipswich to shoot our dazzling and understated Imola Red 1998 BMW Z3M. We had the help of our friend and model, Zey, who helped us out on the shoot as our talented model and driver.
This car is now up for grabs as part of our competition draw, for which you can find out more here.
Last night our 1979 Chevrolet Corvette was won by Lee Bache with his lucky ticket number 387. Our beautiful Red beast will be off to Southampton in the foreseeable future where we know it will look great driving those New Forest roads.
We’ve still got a great line-up of competition cars on our website such as the Range Rover, Daimler and BMW Z3M! Take a look below:
You can see the live draw from our Corvette giveaway here:
Yesterday we delivered our Jaguar XJ6 to winner Nick Nicola, pictured with his son, George. Nick won with lucky ticket number 664.
Our VW Beetle was won before Christmas by Colin and Jan Knight. Colin’s winning ticket was number 32. This lovely Beetle is safely stored with us over the winter. A great win for a lovely local couple.
Here at Bridge Classic Cars, we’re a close-knit team and its not uncommon to have multiple family members, close friends and couples working together. Lydia and Scott are two of our talented technicians who also happen to be a couple. Like a snapshot from the 1940’s era, Scott and Lydia are fascinated by a vintage way of living. As very hands-on individuals, both have led careers in the trade.
Lydia, who only recently joined us, works in our Trim shop and has joined our team of specialist interior trim technicians. Lydia tells us she’s always been into sewing since she was a child, and has always enjoyed being creative, which she says is what she enjoys about working at Bridge. “I love the free reign and the creativity here, I’d never done any of the fitting before so being able to see the whole process is really interesting.”
“I started getting into classic cars when I began going to classic car shows as a teenager and I just ended up wanting one for myself. I’ve never bought a modern car because of it. My first car was a 1961 Morris Minor 1000, my second car was a 1952 Ford Prefect and now I own a 1953 Austin A40 Somerset.”
Not only is Lydia a talented seamstress and interior technician, but she also loves the classic lifestyle, that comes hand in hand with many of the cars that we work on. Lydia tells us that she really loves the challenge that comes with a restoration workshop as she learns the bespoke process of making and fitting each car’s interior, “I really love learning new and different skills” she tells us.
Lydia’s skills don’t just stop at car interiors as she tells us she used to make her own clothes and is currently in the middle of making home furnishings for their new house which is also a classic.
Scott is also a lover of classic and vintage lifestyles. He tells us that he grew up watching his father fix cars and picked it up from there, “I’ve always loved cars, I’ve never really cared about much else.”
Much like Lydia, Scott lives and breathes classic cars, with it not only his passion and career but also his personal hobby. Scott owns an artillery of classic cars including a 1940 Tudor Sudan and a Series 2 Land Rover, among various others. His Land Rover is his and Lydia’s current day to day, which he tells us he bought when in search of a run-around car whist we worked on his other projects, “You have to think of it as a tractor. Many people think its uncomfortable but I don’t, I’ve enjoyed driving it”
Scott used to work as a panel beater for cars caught in accidents but tells us that being at Bridge has allowed him to grow and learn much more about the overall process of renovating classics. Whilst Scott joined as a fabricator and general technician, he soon found his love for working in the main workshop where he had the ability to do a bit of everything. You can find Scott working on projects that range from fitting interior trims, fixing alignment issues in the fabrication bay or working over an engine in the main workshop, “I learn something new every day”.
“I’ve always loved cars, I’ve never really cared about much else.”
Scott’s own long term project is building a workshop at his house which will allow him to work on his collection of cars. The car that will take centre stage in his new workshop will be building a Ford Model A with a flathead V8 installed. This will be a full rebuild, starting with the Model A chassis and working up. He’s currently got a ‘hopped-up’ flathead V8 in his 1940 ford, meaning the Ford A project will come with some previous transferable skills.
It goes without saying, 2020 has been tough for everyone but there have been some positives! Bridge Classic Cars turned 16, we welcomed in more unique and interesting cars, expanded the team and took new ventures.
This year we introduced our competitions back in May. With an uncertain year ahead of us, we wanted to provide some excitement to our followers, and what better way than to offer the chance of winning a car for less than £20! It wasn’t easy at first, but now with over 21 winners and up to 4 competition cars running at the same time, we’re doing better than ever. So far we’ve given away £561,197.00 worth of classic cars!
This week we’re delivering our latest winning cars, our 1974 VW Beetle that was won by Colin Knight and our 1995 Jaguar XJ6 who was won by Nick Nicola just before Christmas! We’re being careful to make the delivery as safe as possible, complying with tier 4 guidelines but we can’t wait to see Colin and Nick’s reactions!
Its been a long restoration, but we were delighted to announce the completion of our very own project, our 1967 Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Race Car Replica. Its come a long way from the decrepit shell we started with in 2017. Every detail, right down to the colour has been custom made and designed. This truly is a Bridge Classic Car. You can see it’s story here.
We love every and any classic car and are in turn, we’re equipped to fix and restore any classic too, but 2020 for us was the year of the Jensen. We’ve had eight 541R/541S’s in this year, some of which are still with us being completed. With only 193 Jensen 541R’s and 127 541S’s ever made worldwide, to have so many in at all really is outstanding, let alone all at the same time.
The 541R models were manufactured between 1957 and 1960 when they were later replaced by the 541S that ran from 1960 to 1962. Whilst each car is incredibly unique with its story and bespoke restoration, they are also very similar, and as you can imagine, with 8 very similar cars in at the same time, it took a while to get our heads around which was which when referring to them.
2020 saw the birth of the Trim Shop. Whilst we’d had individual trim specialists working with us before, we were yet to dedicate a department to it! Last year saw the creation of the Trim Shop, giving the speciality its own workshop and team which continued to grow throughout the year. Originally just Kath and Brian, we have welcomed a new face to the team recently. Lydia has now joined us and is another much-valued member of the trim shop. Having our own trim department allows us to continue keeping all our restorations under one roof, limiting the outsourcing as much as we can.
We’ve also had Ellie join this year, adding to the marketing department. Previously we had just Freddie, and briefly Charlotte doing our marketing, but as the company started to grow, we found the need to take on another set of hands for our marketing and visuals.
We’ve had some very unique cars in this year, including this original 1972 Chevron B20. Its seen top racing drivers, international races and a big crash in its lifetime and nowWe’re selling this on behalf of the owner but in the meantime, we’re enjoying housing this incredible special car. You can find out more about its history on our blogs.
The latter part of this year saw us start shooting some of our cars in a more editorial and creative style. Whilst we’ve always organised high-quality shoots of all our competition and for sale cars, we decided to add models to some of the shoots to make them a bit different.
Now we have both Freddie and Ellie on shoots, it means we can also get behind the scene insights into our shoots.
Another interesting and heartfelt restoration this year was our 1972 Jaguar E-Type Series 3 that we restored. In memory of their late uncle, the owner paid to have a commemorative plaque fitted by the handbrake. We also embedded one of their Uncle’s favourite cufflinks above it as well. As we always say, each restoration is special and every car carries its own stories, but this one was particularly special.
Last January, we had our open morning car show that proved to be incredibly popular. After having to cancel our 2021 January open morning show, we hope to organise one for later this year.
What a way to celebrate Christmas! Last night we had a very festive live draw where we announced the lucky winners of two of competition cars, our 1974 VW Beetle and our 1995 Jaguar XJ6, as well as announcing our new competition car.
Congratulations to Colin Knight, who won our VW Beetle with ticket number 32! Nick Nicola was our Jaguar winner with ticket number 664!
We’ll be delivering their Christmas presents in the new year and can’t wait to hear from them with their new cars!
You can see the entry list here.
If you want to receive exclusive discounts on our competitions, sign up to our mailing list here!
You can also see the live draw below:
Mauro’s beginnings with mechanics began from a young age. His father owned a garage where a young Mauro would watch and learn about mechanics. Learning to walk around cars meant that the fascination for cars was imprinted from a young age.
Mauro tells us that he not only grew up watching his father fix cars but also got involved, “I was 5 when I drove my first car and crashed my first car at 9”, he laughs.
“I would go to school with car supplies in my backpack” Mauro explains.
Mauro went on to work for his father’s garage for around 12 years after he left school however they then parted ways and Maurot then got into driving lorries. Mauro’s career in lorry driving took him around Portugal and Spain, driving for transport and logistics companies.
When Mauro came to the UK, he continued to drive lorries for a number of different companies until he saw a job advert for Bridge Classic Cars. At first, he didn’t apply despite being interested but fate meant he saw another advert a year later and decided to go for it. With plenty of experience fixing cars and continuous personal projects, it made sense for Mauro to join our team of technicians in 2019.
“I love to drive. That’s it, I love driving.”
Mauro tells us he’s always had his own projects on the go, buying cars, fixing them up and then selling them on. Mauro’s current project is a Ford F100, an iconic American pick-up truck. “I love American cars, you grow up seeing them on TV so you want them”.
The intricacy of taking cars apart and reassembling them again is what Mauro enjoys the most, “I like to learn everything I can.”
“Over lock down I kept busy by fixing cars in my spare time”.
Mauro has also been the inspiration for our classic car competitions after he won a Mitsubishi Evolution 8 from Dream Car Giveaways.
Mauro’s dream car is a new Nissan GTR, a high-performance sports car and grand tourer.
“I love to drive” Mauro ends with. “That’s it, I just love to drive.”. Mauro explains that he’d love to do a road trip around Europe.
Much like our other Meet The Team instalments, we end with the technicians ‘birth year’ car, a car that hit the scenes in their year. Following Mauro’s love for American cars, we’ve chosen the 1981 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.
Congratulations to our MGB winner, Tony Lund!
Tony is out of the country for several months with work, so his friend Phillip has very kindly taken delivery of the MGB on Tony’s behalf.
Having owned 6 MGB’s over the years, Tony is delighted to have another beautiful example back in his life. The day before the draw, Tony decided to better his odds and picked up an extra ticket… that turned out to be the winning ticket, number 508!
Congratulations, Tony. Enjoy your cracking new car!
Congratulations to our latest Mini winner! James Colwell won our beautiful 1979 Mini Clubman with his lucky ticket number 850!
We’re delighted that this beautiful car has gone to such a good home and will be a fun experience for the little one too!
Will you be our next winner? We’ve got a stunning Cliff Green 1974 Beetle up for grabs and it could be yours for just £9! Don’t wait as tickets sell out fast!
Congratulations to Sam Holmes from Cheshire who won our stunning 1998 Jaguar XJR Supercharged.
We delivered Sam’s new Jaguar XJR to him this weekend. What a superb win!
Sam bought just a single ticket, winning with ticket number 134.
We’re delighted to hear Sam is enjoying the car already. He recently left a comment on our Facebook post thanking everyone for their kind words; “Thanks again everybody, I think it’s finally sunk in now! Stay safe everyone.”
Congratulations to the winner of our 1999 Mercedes 280SL, Robert Read!
Roberts lucky ticket number was 131. We rang him live on the draw night and his reaction was priceless, he literally couldn’t believe it. Robert’s first was to exclaim; “You’re kidding me!”
You can watch us call him live here.
Last week, we had a hat trick give away! Three cars and three winners certainly kept the live draw exciting.
A big congratulations to James Colwell for winning our 1979 Mini Clubman with his lucky ticket number 850. The Mini will be making its way to Gloucester soon.
Our 1998 Jaguar XJR Supercharged was won by Sam Holmes with his ticket number 134. Our Jaguar will be prowling up to Cheshire to truly become the Cheshire Cat!
Finally, our 1999 Mercedes was won by Robert Read with ticket number 131. This lovely modern classic will soon be making its way down to Surrey!
Although Robert’s ticket number was selected, it wasn’t the first ticket number to be chosen by Google’s random number generator. The first ticket pulled was 183 was a number assigned to an unbought ticket. This just goes to show it’s worth buying those extra tickets as that could have been you!
We’ve got our 1972 MGB Roadster to give away tomorrow and with less than 400 tickets left, this beautiful Blaze Orange number is selling out fast!
This has been guaranteed for tomorrow so regardless, this car will find its new owner tomorrow! Could it be you?
Recently we’d looked at buying these two Rovers P5B’s as seen below. Could a few new rovers be on our horizon? We certainly wouldn’t be complaining…
We’ve recently welcomed a 1994 Land Rover – Range Rover TDI into the Bridge Classic Car family. There’s a lot of work to do on it, such as fitting interior, refurbishing the ceiling cloth, repainting and servicing just to start!
We’re mulling over what colour we’d like to paint our new Range Rover but its likely to stick with the blue theme.
Once this work is finished, we have a decision to make… competition car? or re-sale? Stay tuned!
We teased this 1974 Lime Green VW Beetle when we bought it and after a long drive down from Buckie, Scotland, it’s now safely tucked up in our Hanger, ready to be photographed and launched very soon!
We’re still got our beautiful 1999 Mercedes 280SL up for grabs and tonight is the Double Your Odds draw!
You can check that out this evening on Facebook Live and head over to our competitions website here.
Take a look at the photos we shot below!
Our trim experts have been focusing on making sure our new competition car, the 1972 MGB Blaze Orange Roadster, is all up to scratch. The latest fine detail that’s been tweaked is the trimmings in the boot.
Firstly Kath made a tool bag by marking out the pieces on the leather, sewing Velcro on, sewing the two pieces together, and finally, turning them over.
The next task was to make the boot carpet. This was done by cutting out the pattern from the material, binding the edges, and fitting it.
After all this is done, it leaves the MGB with a neat interior, reader for anything the world has to throw at it, or in it.
Our 1998 BMW Z3 M Roadster has been sent to the Paint Shop to be stripped down for respray, primed, bumps, and scrapes fixed and rust removed.
Once the dents had been corrected and the body sanded and stripped, it was time for the BMW to receive a high build primer coat which allows the paint to stick. The next stage will be for the BMW to go back to the spray booth for masking and respray.
This stunning car will soon be up for grabs in one of our competitions! Keep your eyes peeled for a smart red modern classic coming your way!
Our new competition car is a smart 1998 Jaguar XJR Supercharged in a moody navy blue and could be yours for under £10.
Don’t let the Jaguar’s elegant styling fool you, this performance machine packs a hell of a punch. The 4.0L Supercharged V8 engine catapults you to 60mph in just 5 seconds! The 380bhp XJR will pull hard, all the way to its limited top speed of 155mph.
These Jaguar’s were built to a very high standard and feel every bit a quality heritage British performance car
Full service in July 2020 at Jaguar Land Rover Stratstone Service Centre.
In February 2020, the XJR had the following new components: drive belt, water pump, rear shock absorbers, front disks and pads, brake fluid and rear wheel bearings. No expense has been spared on this car’s maintenance.
The current MOT expires in December 2020, however, we will be putting a fresh 12 month MOT on the vehicle before delivery to the winner.
You can enter this by heading over to the competition website or clicking here.
This week we announced the two lucky winners of our competition.
Karl Reilly from Essex won the 1968 Triumph TR3 with his lucky ticket number 4174. Karl is a triumph lover, already owning a yellow Triumph GT6 so we know our TR3 will be in good company.
Today Karl drove a close relative to their wedding in his new Triumph and we can’t think of a better way to experience your first drive in a new car!
Our second winner was Lee Polley from Hull who won the beautiful 1991 Mini Rover with his lucky ticket 410.
We’ve been so overwhelmed with positive comments from other competition entrees and supporters congratulating the winners.
If you fancy your chances at winning a classic car, you can enter our current draws on our 1962 Triumph TR4 or a suave 1999 Mercedes 280SL.
We were recently mentioned in Vision Suffolk’s magazine in an article about two recent Mini winners.
Chris Allitt and Courtney Barker both won Minis as a result of entering our monthly competitions.
You can see the article in edition 28 available here.
We run our competitions each month. By entering you could win a classic car for under £20! You can find out more by visiting our competition website here.
“We all buy a ticket in the hope we win, but we never expect to win.”
Our most recent winner, Karl Reilly from Essex, was delighted to receive our 1957 Triumph TR3 today with his lucky ticket number 4174.
He’s putting his new TR3 to good use this week, driving a close relative to their wedding on Thursday.
Karl is a Triumph fanatic, already owning a Triumph GT6, meaning the new TR3 will feel at home in the hands of a Triumph Club member.
If you’d also like the chance to be a lucky Triumph winner, we’ve got the TR3’s little sister, the TR4, up for grabs now!
Pick up your TR4 tickets here.
Congratulations to the winner of our 1979 Ford Escort RS2000, Mike Hill
We delivered the RS2000 up to Mike in Manchester today. Our covered vehicle transporter kept the RS nice and clean on its journey. Mike won with ticket number 1676.
We have three stunning cars live on the website, two of them will be won next week!
💚 1957 Triumph TR3 (Won in just 8 days time! 640 tickets left)
www.bridgeclassiccarscompetitions.co.uk/product/triumph-tr3
💛 1991 Rover Mini (Won in just 8 days time! 92 tickets left)
www.bridgeclassiccarscompetitions.co.uk/product/mini
❤️ 1962 Triumph TR3 (Launch Sale – tickets are just £15)
www.bridgeclassiccarscompetitions.co.uk/product/1962-tr4
Our gorgeous 1957 Triumph TR3 is the latest classic car available to be won. Our competitions give you the chance of winning a classic car for just a few pounds. We limit the maximum number of tickets that can be sold so the odds of you winning are clear to see.
For your chance of winning our 1957 Triumph TR3 for just £9 a ticket follow the link below:
https://www.bridgeclassiccarscompetitions.co.uk/product/triumph-tr3/
Having serviced and maintained the TR3 for some time here at Bridge Classic Cars, we have first hand experience of this truly special example of one of the finest and most iconic British sportscars.
Restored in 2017 to exceptionally high standards by Triumph TR3 Specialists ‘TR Trader’ at a cost of over £42,000, the car is a greatly sought after and a rare find in right hand drive. Over 90% of TR3’s were left hand drive, predominantly made for the US market.
To add to the already incredible back story of the car, being a 1957 Triumph TR3, it also qualifies for the world famous Mille Miglia which having that credibility, hugely increases the value of this special car.
Finished in British Racing Green with Biscuit trim and Biscuit piping the car has undergone a serious transformation in it’s lifetime and is a credit to it’s former keepers.
Specification:
Tickets are limited to a maximum of 6875
Don’t miss out on your chance of winning this gorgeous British classic. Pick up your tickets today!
Oscar Casco was the latest winner with us. He won our 1985 Lotus Esprit Turbo with ticket number 394! Take a look at the video below to see his wonderful reaction.
You could be our next winner! Check out our current competitions here.
Congratulations to Chris Allitt, winner of the 1974 Austin Mini. Mauro delivered the car to Chris on Saturday. Its fair to say Chris was stunned to see this lovely classic arriving on his doorstep! After chatting to Chris we learned he used to build the engines on classic minis. We discovered that Chris assembled the engine on this very car! Obviously Chris is a very skilled engine builder as she’s still running beautifully to this day. How amazing that this Mini has returned back to Chris!
Winner: Chris Allitt
Ticket No: 1558
The Live Draw for this competition was held on Saturday 23rd May 2020.
Will you be our next classic car winner? To find out a little bit more about our competitions head to www.BridgeClassicCars.co.uk/Competitions to see how our competitions are won. We’ve already had four lucky classic car winners!
Thanks to Chris for posting his own picture of the car arriving on our Facebook page.
Bridge Classic Cars would like to thank everyone who entered our 1964 MGB Roadster competition. This donation was made on behalf of each and every one of you who supported our first ever competition.
Thank you to all the wonderful NHS staff and key workers across the country. We are immensely grateful for your courage, resilience and compassion in these trying times.
Stay safe, stay well and stay positive.
The Bridge Classic Cars Team
The story behind Bridge Classic Cars Competitions has just been featured in Suffolk Magazine.
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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