The restoration and race preparation aspect of the business have always been inter dependant. I started restoring cars with a Messerschmitt three wheeler in 1966, as at the age of 16 my mother wouldn't let me have a motor bike [very sensibly] and I was desperate for motorised transport. My passion for all the very daft and obscure three wheelers and 'bubble ' cars has never really diminished, and I am always interested in buying them in any condition! From there I moved onto Morris Minors, as they were capable of towing my kart, [just about]. The kart was a Villiers Blow Victor 3, which I campaigned with limited success under the guidance of the then world champion Graham Liddle. As ever it got to expensive, and I carried on restoring various cars for my own use, including MGA, Morgan, convertible Morris Minor, etc.
After the foray into professional racing I set up my own garage in central Manchester, and from the start we restored many makes specialising in Morgan, TVR, and Lotus, before moving into MG. It was the move into MG that got me back into the race prep, starting with an MGB for my cousin Mark Ashworth, and then a matching car for myself. We had great success from the start, winning the BCV8 and BARC MGOC championships many times. Our successful race preparation includes most varieties of modern MG, A, B, C and V8, all stages of Midget / Healey Sprite and of course the infamous 1300 saloon, Ethel ! Our standard class MGC and Ethel were both so good that they eventually got the rules of various championships changed, so as to make them ineligible !! You see you can win them all ! but people don't like it.
I have now been building race cars for 50 years, (getting the hang of it ! ) and most recently have been running cars for Mike Peters, (MG Midget 1500 and Elva MKVIIs ) and for Paul Campfield, ( Chevron B24 F5000 and MGB’s ).I also recommissioned my old TVR 1800s for Keith Atkins, which his son Lee is campaigning very successfully in Eqipe GTS. The Messerschmitt rebuild count is now up to six, with two more in the pipeline, one of which is going to be an aluminium ‘lightweight’ ! The V8 MGA is finished and on track, but still needs a little ‘sorting’. It has 300BHP and 300Ft Lbs of torque, so it is quite quick which is how we like them !!