We all remember building snowmen and making snow angels as children in the snow but few of us can claim we’ve built a snow car. A husband and wife from Lithuania decided to re-create a Ferrari LaFerrari out of snow.
Chris is our classic car painter and fabricator. Whilst you can find him fabricating bodywork and smoothing down our cars ready to paint, you’re more likely to find him suited up in the paint shop. He’s recently been working on
Bruce Springsteen stars in Jeep’s Superbowl commercial with a heartfelt message of finding unity and peace. The video is in celebration of Jeep’s 80th anniversary and a call for Americans to find a ‘common ground’. In the film entitled ‘The
With arctic conditions sweeping across East Anglia, those without 4×4’s or tractors might be wondering how to get to work or the shops. The short and easy answer is to stay at home and don’t venture out if you’re unsure,
The silver lady may soon be totally electric powered in the form of a possible new model, the Silent Shadow. Rolls Royce has recently released the prototype image of its new all-electric car. Whilst other brands have scrambled to produce
Back in 2020, we lost an iconic 007. Sir Sean Connery sadly passed away last year but his 1986 BMW 635 CSI is now up for auction with estimations of its sale going for between £30,000 to £60,000. The current
The UK’s first all-electric car charging forecourt opened in Essex in December 2020. It comes equipped with super-fast wifi and a selection of shops such as WHSmith and cafes to keep drivers entertained whilst they recharge their vehicle. The forecourt
We know this year has presented some challenging and difficult times for everyone but we wanted to say thank you to all our clients and followers who have continued to support us and keep up to date with our projects.
Laura Kennedy founded London’s first all female garage, Spanners With Manners, in her endeavour to make the industry more inclusive.
We’ve been discussing which modern cars we think are going to age like fine wines and which might fade into the history books. There are a whole host of current cars from run-abouts to super cars that have what it
We all remember building snowmen and making snow angels as children in the snow but few of us can claim we’ve built a snow car.
A husband and wife from Lithuania decided to re-create a Ferrari LaFerrari out of snow. Every detail was covered from the colour (done in an environmentally friendly paint) to the aerodynamic shape. It took two days of dedicated craftmanship from the couple to create the iconic red beast. At the end of the masterpiece, the wife, Donata Bugiene, said “Now no one can deny that there is a Ferrari in our yard.”
The Ferrari is a real size, made to the dimensions of the original Ferrari LaFerrari,” said Bugiene.
The life-size replica of Ferrari’s LaFerrari supercar (image taken Jan. 31, 2021. (Photo credit: Donata Bugiene)
Chris is our classic car painter and fabricator. Whilst you can find him fabricating bodywork and smoothing down our cars ready to paint, you’re more likely to find him suited up in the paint shop. He’s recently been working on turning the Peony Red Jensen, peony red, a long-awaited and much-anticipated metamorphosis.
Chris’ expertise in fabricating comes from experience when he worked at a friend’ father’s body shop. There he worked with a wide variety of cars all whilst learning on the job. It’s there he found his love for it, “I enjoy the hands-on aspect of it.”
Chris tells us he has a love both fabricating and painting but wants to learn a bit more about engines and electrics of cars, “I’d like to learn a bit more about the engines, I know a lot of the other bits but I’d be interested in learning more about the electrics and engines”.
In his spare time Chris enjoys spending quality time with his family and when the weather allows, playing cricket and golf. Chris’s dream car is either a 1967 Mustang or a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hard Top Estate.
Bruce Springsteen stars in Jeep’s Superbowl commercial with a heartfelt message of finding unity and peace. The video is in celebration of Jeep’s 80th anniversary and a call for Americans to find a ‘common ground’.
In the film entitled ‘The Middle’, Springsteen drives a 1980 Jeep CJ-5 convertible, and seen stationary is a 1965 CJ-5, still present with its ‘Willys’ badge.
In a statement, Global Chief Marketing Officer for Stellantis, Olivier Francois, said, ‘The Middle’ is a celebration of the Jeep brand’s 80-year anniversary and, more timely, it is a call to all Americans to come together and seek common ground as we look collectively to the road ahead.”
With arctic conditions sweeping across East Anglia, those without 4×4’s or tractors might be wondering how to get to work or the shops. The short and easy answer is to stay at home and don’t venture out if you’re unsure, but for many, that might not be an option. Here are some tips for driving in the snow (according to RAC).
Plan your journey to use only main roads that are likely to be gritted. Busier roads are also less likely to be as dangerous as back roads will be driven on less and therefore hold more snow. Leave plenty of time to de-ice the car and check your tyres. Always ensure you have a shovel, warm layers, appropriate shoes and a high-vis vest in the boot in case you break down.
If you do have to frequently drive in snow conditions, ensuring that your car is regularly cleaned reduces the possibility of the salt causing corrosion damage to your car.
You can see more about driving in deep snow, snow tyres and snow chains here.
The silver lady may soon be totally electric powered in the form of a possible new model, the Silent Shadow.
Rolls Royce has recently released the prototype image of its new all-electric car. Whilst other brands have scrambled to produce an electric vehicle, Rolls Royce seems to have been playing it slow and steady. The new EV design may have a futuristic utopian flare but Rolls Royce has kept their signature royal boxy elegance.
This stunning Rolls Royce is set to be released to the public in 2022 and will mark the 2020’s with a flare of utopian opulence.
You can see more here
Back in 2020, we lost an iconic 007. Sir Sean Connery sadly passed away last year but his 1986 BMW 635 CSI is now up for auction with estimations of its sale going for between £30,000 to £60,000. The current bid, (at the time of this article – 10:15 am) is sat at £31,250 but we expect that figure to continue to rise until bidding closes at 19:30 tonight.
This stunning BMW 635CSI would be the ideal motor so someone wanting to test the waters of the high performance modern classic car world.
It is believed that Sean Connery owned this BMW 6 series 1989/90 and then sold it in 1998 and the low mileage could be attributed to the fact that Mr Connery was rather busy staring in multiple Hollywood blockbusters during that time. Since then, the car has been stored in several storage units and made brief appearances under different dealerships.
We will continue to follow this auction so keep an eye out on our website and check the auction site linked below.
Although we haven’t worked on the exact same model, we have worked on this 1988 BMW 635CSI that came in back in 2018 for an interior trim freshen up!
The post-1982 BMW 6 series adopted the E28 chassis from the previous BMW 5 series which lead to improvements in the mechanics of the car as well as enhancements to its interior and exterior. This model also suits anything from the school run to tackling winding country roads. The reliability and graceful ageing of this car is all down to the solid and reliable engineering that the older models offer.
The UK’s first all-electric car charging forecourt opened in Essex in December 2020. It comes equipped with super-fast wifi and a selection of shops such as WHSmith and cafes to keep drivers entertained whilst they recharge their vehicle.
The forecourt offers 350kW of charging power which is enough to top up 200 miles in 20 minutes. There is space for 36 cars to be charging at the same time too, so no chance of a shortage of stations.
Gridserve, the company who has built the forecourt hopes to build more than 100 sites such as this in the next 5 years. The Braintree site is powered by clean energy from one of the UK’s first subsidy-free solar farms at Clayhill in Bedfordshire as well as overhead solar canopies.
“As we accelerate towards cleaner and greener transport, I’m delighted to see the future of service stations being brought to life with the opening of the UK’s first all-electric forecourt.” Rachel Maclean, Transport Minister commented.
You can see the blog about our friends from Ransome Van Centre who visited it, here.
We know this year has presented some challenging and difficult times for everyone but we wanted to say thank you to all our clients and followers who have continued to support us and keep up to date with our projects. With more areas in the South East going into Tier 4 soon, we hope everyone will keep safe.
With only 2 sleeps until Christmas, we want to let you know that our workshop will be closed from 24th December at 5 pm to 4th January 2021. You can still reach us via our phone number over the festive period if needed.
But until then, have a wonderful Christmas and a happy, and healthy, new year! We’ll be back in the office bright and early on the 4th of January.
Mechanics and engineering has always traditionally been a male dominated industry but Laura Kennedy from Spanners With Manners has broken the mould.
Laura founded London’s first all-female garage with the vision to make the industry more inclusive
Laura talks in her interview about struggling to be accepted onto apprenticeship schemes due to her gender and discovering unjust pay gaps despite her qualifications. “There’s been a lot of sexism in the workplace,” Laura explains.
When the owner of the car sales and repairs company that she worked for told her that he wanted to retire, she took the move to create her own inclusive all-female garage with the aim to create a space for female mechanics to learn and customers to visit.
Creating an environment for people to learn is an important part of progressing the car engineering industry as many parts of the trade would otherwise die out if skills weren’t passed down. Equally creating a friendly and open space for clients to feel that they are welcome is just as important. Taking this approach to engineering in turn encourages the clients to get more involved with their cars and the industry as it becomes more accessible.
Caroline’s Cars in Norwich was the first all female garage in the UK and took pride in being a female run and owned company. Although it has sadly shut down this year, it had been running since 2003 and strove to increase diversity and equality in the car engineering industry. In the Engineering UK report of 2018, it stated that 12.37% of engineers are women, with hopes that the figure will rise with more businesses like Spanners With Manners and Caroline’s Cars.
We’ve been discussing which modern cars we think are going to age like fine wines and which might fade into the history books. There are a whole host of current cars from run-abouts to super cars that have what it takes to become a classic car.
The conversation was triggered when a copy of the Garage Support landed on our desk in the marketing department, with the magazine open on an article that discussed the top 10 cars on the road over 3 years old. It got us thinking about how modern cars are ageing and which models will take centre stage for the next generation of sought after classics. Ellie, our marketing assistant was happy to see that her Toyota Yaris had made the cut for the top 10 cars, a small victory for a Wednesday afternoon.
Among the guesses made for future classics were the Ford Focus ST, VW Golf MK4, Mazda MX5, Toyota Starlet, Cupra Formentor, Fiat 124 Spider, F-Type Jaguar, Mitsubishi Evo VII and Aston Martin DB9.
The team had different reasons for their guesses, some suggested that much like the Beetle or Ford Escort that started its life as a simple first car, many of the common modern cars could also age well. It’s certainly a temptation to pick up a cheap car now with the foresight of a future classic!
Alternatively, we had some say that modern-day supercars such as Aston Martin DB9 and the Bugatti Veyron would make their way into the hall of classics, in much the same way as 1960’s sports cars such as the Jaguar E-Types developed into long-loved classics.
It’s certainly an interesting thought. Many of the cars we bought as cheap first cars have become sought after classics. But which cars will be the next selection of golden classics?
With the future of automotive engineering venturing into the world of electric motors and self-driving vehicles, will the classic manual petrol be a thing of the past?
We’ve found this lovely Mazda MX5 MK1 that had recently sold for just £1220 with 47,000 miles on the clock. Investing in a pre-1998 Mazda MX5 with low milage may just pay off in the future.
