Brian has been re-covering more panels for the 1955 Aston Martin DB 2/4.
This time it’s been the lower A posts, the dash side panels, the rear seat front rail and the boot side panels. He took the original leather off all of them and cleaned off any old glue that was left behind. He then used the original leather pieces as patterns on the new leather, marked out around them and cut them out. The new leather pieces were then glued onto their associated panels, and any foam was added where need be.
Paul has successfully removed the engine from our beautiful blue 1969 Mercedes 280SL Pagoda. The engine will be rebuilt by Ady and the engine bay will be detailed as part of the project.
Apart from a couple of small paint imperfections the engine bay is very good order so a really good clean followed by some touching up in places will present us with a lovely space to return the engine to once completed.
Kath has been laying the carpet back down in the peony red 1960 Jensen 541S. The pedals needed some adjustment, so the sound deadening and carpet were glued back down after this was done.
Brian has been finishing the headlining fitting for the 1981 Rover SD1 Vanden Plas.
In this last post about it, you can see that he was glueing in the sunroof section. https://bridgeclassiccars.co.uk/headlining-work-continues-for-the-vanden-plas/ The board with the main piece of headlining on slid in from the back of the car. Brian had to take out the panels with the seatbelts attached, to put the headlining back in, and then they got put back into place.
What a weekend! Now we’re back at base, it’s time for a re-cap of another classic car-fueled weekend. After a canceled 2020 show, Helmingham hall played backdrop for a wonderful show. Charlotte and the Bridge team were all at the show to present our restoration projects and current competition lineup. We even closed out the show by drawing the winner of our 1959 Jaguar MK1 which was Shaun Clarke, with ticket number 1486.
Here are a few snaps we took at the show.
Were you at the show? It was lovely to meet so many of you yesterday.
Scott has been working on the 1968 Jaguar E-Type Series 1.5 4.2.
He’s replaced the brake line that connects to the rear axle, bled the brakes, the bushes have been replaced in the steering column, because they were worn out, he’s lock wired any bolts that needed to be, fitted a new radio and replaced the fuel line because it had been badly fitted before!
Dave has been carrying out work on the 1975 magenta Triumph TR6. Here’s a list and a look at what he’s been up to!
There were problems with the horn so a new plate was ordered, the earth coil needs re-instating, replaced the fuel filter in the boot, the pipe got replaced, the fuel was drained a couple of times because of debris in it, Dave lubricated to free up the butterflies in the engine bay, each injector was removed to get the air out of the pipes, he set out linkage in sequence, which was done with a vacuum metre, there was oil in the distributor, so Dave cleaned it out, and put it all back together again, the clutch had to be made longer and now works fine, the wiper motor needs attention, and he’s set the points up!
Lydia has been helping Chris in the paint shop with the 1998 Honda Integra Type R panels.
Chris has been priming them, and then Lydia has been coating them in black guide coat, which shows the imperfections in the primer surface when sanded down. She sanded each panel down until no guide coat could be seen anymore. This was done with a mixture of blocking, using a DA and sanding by hand. Lydia then went over each panel with a grey scotch pad lightly and cleaned off any sanding dust with pre-clean.
Tamas has fabricated and welded together a new stereo box for the white 1954 Jaguar Mk VII. Kath has then covered it in dark red leather, ready to go in the car!
Kath has been starting to fit the front squab seats and their carpet backs to the frames.
She began by stapling the sides of the front squab to the wooden part of the frame. She then trimmed back the foam on the flutes, to lay nice and flat on the back. Then she stapled the front of the squab to the wood of the seat frame, making sure it fitted nicely. Piping was then stapled around the back edge. The carpet back was placed on top of this, just inside the piping.
The first front squab is now ready! Exactly the same process will be carried out for the second one.
Brian has been finishing the restoration of the headlining for our 1981 Rover 3500 SD1 Vanden Plas.
Once he’d finished getting all the old foam and glue off the board, he cut a piece of nylon foam headlining to the required size and proceeded to glue it onto the board. Brian had to do this in sections because the glue went off too quickly.
Brian has had to glue new headlining fabric to the sunroof section as well. This didn’t have a board, it was just glued straight on. He’s just got to fit the headlining board in the car now!
Work continues on our 1963 Jaguar MkII. Paul has stripped the engine bay of key components, clean up in preparation for refit. The refit will commence once the engine bay is prepared and painted by our paint shop.
We’ve been keeping something very exciting under wraps and we’re now delighted to be able to tell the world that we’ve partnered with Lotus and Norwich City Community Sports Foundation to run a charity competition with the to win a very special Lotus Elise.
Our 2021 Lotus Elise Sport 240 Final Edition is set to be one of the most iconic cars in Lotus history and you could win it! In the final year of the Lotus Elise production, this very car is the very first final edition car. To put it simply, it’s the very first of the very last ltd edition Lotus Elise.
All of the proceeds will be given to Norwich City Community Sports Foundation to help thousands of people every year achieve their goals through sport, supporting some of the most disadvantaged, disabled and talented people across the region. Their vision is to support, inspire, and improve the community.
With Ellie on the Behind the scenes and supplementary visuals and Freddie directing the crew, we managed to shoot some amazing visuals for the campaign. You can take a peak behind the scenes here:
Work is soon underway on the extension to our workshop which means our storage unit has been moved to the other side of the site in preparation for the grounds work to take place.
We’re eagerly awaiting this building work to start so that we can have a new exciting workshop with even more space.
We recently celebrated a year since our Golden Rolls Royce Silver Shadow found its new home with Michael, who’s been keeping us thoroughly updated with his adventures via Instagram. Michael recently wrote us this article about the last year which we’re delighted to share, along with some photos he’s provided. If you fancy having your own golden Roller, check out our golden Rolls Royce Corniche.
Gold fever
It’s now a little over 12 months since I became the 3rd custodian of SRH20091 – a 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow – bought from Bridge Classic Cars, and despite COVID-19’s best efforts to prevent us we’ve had quite a few adventures over the last year.
As a perfectionist and ex-car designer myself I’ve always admired Sir Henry Royce’s automotive achievements and, as a child of the 70s and 80s, grew up lusting after Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows seen in numerous Roger Moore Bond films, episodes of Lovejoy, To The Manor Born and Don’t Wait Up. They epitomised success and excellence to that small boy and he promised himself that one day he would own one.
In 2014 I had a first brief, if slightly bitter, taste of Silver Shadow ownership with an early example from 1968. Her bodywork was a bit tatty and her 46 year old 6.25 litre engine and mechanicals had been somewhat neglected over the preceding decades, meaning that she frequently, in Rolls-Royce parlance, ‘failed to proceed’! However, far from dampening my interest in Shadow ownership, it well and truly rekindled that childhood yearn and so the search for my ideal car began.
Over the next 6 years, after much trawling of classifieds online and visits to classic car auctions in all weathers, I saw a number of Shadows – including some horrors that would have made Sir Henry’s blood curdle. As a purest, it always had to be a chrome bumper Series 1 car, but now I’d narrowed that down to a late model flared wheelarch Shadow with the wider track and larger 6.75 litre L-Series powerplant – meaning a ’74 – ’76 car.
In September 2019 the Shad that I would come to own caught my attention in an online advert. For sale by Bridge Classic Cars – a very reputable restorers, the right age, model, spec and by the look of the photos, in very good condition – she stood out in her eye-catching Regency Bronze and black Everflex roof. I vowed to go and see her, but life got in the way and by the time I got around to making an appointment she’d been sold. So the search continued.
4 months later I was in the USA and one evening by the fireside while surfing the net the advert from Bridge Classic Cars popped up again. Miraculously the golden car I’d been bewitched by back in September had reappeared for sale. This had to be fate! I couldn’t believe this second chance and quickly arranged a viewing.
On that cold February morning – the day after Valentine’s – I drove up from London, through the torrential rain and high winds of Storm ‘Dennis’, to see this beguiling motor car in-the-metal for the first time. It was love at first sight! The car was just as stunning in reality as she was in her photos. Craig and Gordon Ranson were both there to meet me and their friendly, honest approach, expert knowledge and infectious enthusiasm for classic cars gave me immediate confidence. After a thorough inspection I knew that I wanted her and after a test drive in the tornado-like winds of the storm, a deal was done. I drove home happy, albeit with a much lighter bank balance!
And so I became ‘The Man With The Golden Roller’. Officially she’s R-R Chassis No. 20091, in (ICI M 151-3898) Regency Bronze with (VM 8500) black Connolly Leather interior, Sundym glass and (5218 DH) black Everflex roof, but I’ve christened her ‘Auric’. I’m a big Bond fan so her name is a nod towards classic 007 film ‘Goldfinger’, but also something that is described as “auric” : is of, relating to, or derived from gold, so it seemed wholly appropriate for my ‘Golden Roller’, which rolled off the Crewe production line in the autumn of 1974.
Gold digging
To me, part of the joy of owning a classic car is to research it’s back story. Provenance being just as important for a venerable car as it is for fine wine or celebrated works of art. So, since she became mine, as well as enjoying Auric on the road, I’ve been tracing her 46 year history – consulting DVLA records, the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club archives and piecing together information from the bundle of papers and clues like service stickers that came with her.
I’ve also managed to acquire Auric’s original factory Build Records. Every Rolls-Royce built at Crewe had it’s own multi-page book that followed the car, from metal pressing to finished vehicle, on it’s journey through production. Thanks to this fascinating and comprehensive document I now know that it took 35 days for her ‘body-in-white’ to reach the required standard to be sent to the paint shop, and that once there she spent 10 days having 15 coats of paint hand flatted between coats, before a thorough polishing and final inspection – in the words of Sir Henry, perfection cannot be rushed. It shines a light onto how these expensive, hand-built cars were made back in the ’70s and is an amazing addition to Auric’s history file.
She was delivered to R-R main dealer Appleyard Rippon Ltd, on Order No. R8678, for a corporate customer in Leeds who’d had the confidence, and cash, to order her in the middle of an oil crisis. She was registered GWW 480N on Armistice Day 1974, the plate she still bears today. As far as I know Auric then became the company MDs transport – covering over 28,000 miles (40% of her current, verified mileage reading) within her 1st year – and stayed with the him when he moved to Eastbourne sometime in the late 1970s. I’m assuming that this discerning gentleman may have taken early retirement from the Leeds-based business and kept the R-R he loved. However, this is pure speculation on my part, although while cleaning and feeding the Connolly leather last summer I removed the driver’s seat and found one of his business cards under the seat! It seems that at some point he was dabbling as an antiques dealer in Sussex, in true ‘Lovejoy’ style.
Like most of these majestic, but expensive to run, classic motor cars she appears to have been laid up for a number of years during the ’80s and ’90s then, in the summer of 2015 after the original owner died, she was sold at Kings Lynn’s Anglia Car Auctions. Auric’s second owner resided in Suffolk and so Auric swapped the balmy south coast for the rural idyll of East Anglia – residing just 50 odd miles away from where that small boy had dreamed of owning his own Rolls.
Golden moments
I believe that a car should be used, and most Rolls-Royce specialists will tell you that an R-R of this vintage gets better with use. There’s nothing I like better than nestling into the softly sprung comfort of the driver’s leather ‘armchair’ and wafting, yes wafting – there’s no other word to describe the magic carpet-like ride of a Silver Shadow – to a beauty spot, stately home, country pub or even the supermarket. So in the last 12 months Auric and I have covered the thick end of 2500 miles. Despite not being able to go to any major show events, due to the dreaded virus, we’ve had excursions to Hampshire, The Cotswolds, North Norfolk, Sussex, Surrey and Berkshire. Most memorable visits – and photo and video opportunities – last year were Buckingham Palace, Pinewood Studios, Cliveden and The Savoy. Everywhere we go we get noticed – people ask about Auric, take photos and are genuinely interested in her – which just makes my day as I love talking about her!
This year, restrictions permitting, we’re planning a little excursion onto the Continent, touring the Champagne region; an appearance at both the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club’s South of England Rally at Stansted House and Annual Rally at Burghley House; and perhaps a pilgrimage to Monmouthshire, the birthplace of C.S. Rolls; as well as the normal weekend trips out to explore this glorious country in one of it’s finest ever automotive creations.
Another delivery to one of our competition winners! A big congratulations to Steven Lambe with lucky ticket number 950. We delivered our 1996 Mercedes 320SL up to his home north of Newcastle yesterday after Craig and Gordon took the long road trip up north.
Steven, a Mercedes enthusiast, only spent only £18 with us, meaning he bought just two tickets and managed to win with one of them! Although he used to race hot-rods Steven recently sold his last one to fund his current modern Mercedes. Steven is also part of the Mercedes owners club and now has two stunning Mercedes Motors he can take along to meets and greets!
We can’t wait to see what Steven gets up to with his new modern classic!
Here’s a snap of a true northern sight from the cabin on the way up north.
We are delighted to announce that we’ve teamed up with Car and Classic to share our Bridge Classic Cars’ services and competitions across their website. If you’re used to perusing the classifieds of Car and Classic, you’ll start to see our adverts popping up.
Scott, one of Bridge’s Classic Car Technicians has fitted this khaki canvas tilt to our Land Rover.
As with all of our competition cars, our Series II is having a full check over in the Bridge Classic Cars Workshop, with any necessary works carried out before it goes up on the website to be won.
In addition to the mechanical work we are doing to prepare our Land Rover, we decided to fit a brand new canvas tilt to make the rear buck a bit more practical. A popular choice for Land Rover owners, we also think a canvas tilt improves the looks, what do you think to the new addition?
To be notified when our Land Rover goes live, sign up to our Mailing List. We also send out exclusive discounts only by email 👉 http://eepurl.com/gXSlMf
February 18, 2021 12:40 pmPublished by Craig Ranson
Back in November, we headed over to Hintlesham Hall to photograph our opulent 1973 Rolls Royce Corniche with our friend Giles, who was our talented model and driver for the shoot.
This stunning gold and brown classic is a spacious and dreamy drive, perfect for the road trip and country get away.
This car is currently up for sale with us and could be yours! You can read more about it here.
Brian has begun to strip down the interior of the 1979 Arrow Daytona in at Bridge Classic Cars.
Carefully Brian and the trim team have removed all of the carpeting and necessary trim panels to get access to both the dash and centre console which will be removed and stored before their restoration starts.
Along with the interior trim pieces, the wiring for the cabin has also been removed and catalogued for future reference once the car is back in the workshop to be reassembled.
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.
Our Bedford J-Type truck restoration is being put to good use. Owner of Calm Indian Cow, a traditional Indian takeaway restaurant, Mahesh tasked us with restoring his 1971 Bedford Truck, fully loaded and ready for food preparation and service.
Based in Shoreditch, Mahesh is cooking up a storm, serving delicious Indian cuisine from the converted truck.
Beastmag London have recently featured Mahesh and Calm Indian Cow on their Instagram page. It was a pleasure to be tasked with such a special project. If you’re ever in the Leonard Street, Shoreditch area, we would thoroughly recommend paying Mahesh a visit.
Just before Christmas, we discovered an issue with the Amphicar’s gearbox which had become noisy. We decided to take it out and inspect the elements. You can read about the diagnosis here.
The gearbox has been sent to Last Transmissions to be overhauled and replace the bearings. Once this has been done and is back with us, we hope to get it back together again and put on the water.
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