Car restorer swamped with interest after TV coverage
A SHROPSHIRE classic car restorer is being swamped with interest after its work was featured on five separate television programmes.
Classic Motor Cars of Bridgnorth (CMC) is one of the country’s leading restoration companies.
The programmes include Cars That Rock with AC/DC front-man Brian Johnson, Fifth Gear, Inside Jaguar: Making a Million Pound Car, which is a new Channel 4 documentary on the iconic Lightweight, a special feature on pensions on ITV News and BBC One’s Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.
Peter Neumark, Chairman of CMC, said: “These are important accolades for CMC. We now seem to be a major port of call for directors and producers who want to film classic cars and their restorations, particularly when it comes to classic Jaguars.”
CMC’s Lindner Nocker Lightweight will appear in ‘Inside Jaguar: Making a Million Pound Car’, a 60-minute documentary presented by classic car enthusiast Mark Evans. The show airs tonight (Thursday) at 9pm on Channel 4.
The programme gains exclusive access to Jaguar, following the creation of what is arguably the world’s most exclusive car. Only 12 Lightweights were produced in 1963, but 18 were originally planned. Now the remaining six are being recreated by Jaguar from scratch with precision engineering.
The Lindner Nocker is the fifth of the original 12 Lightweights built by Jaguar. After a massive accident in 1964 at Montlhéry, it was impounded and locked away for many years. The mangled original body (left) was thought to be unrepairable, but CMC took on the challenge of restoring it in 2007 and unveiled it to the world four years later, winning the prestigious ‘Restoration of the Year’ Award at the 2011 International Historic Motoring Awards.
Nick Goldthorp, managing director at CMC, said: “This was one of the most challenging projects we have ever undertaken. It took us over 7,000 hours to restore it, spending 5,000 hours on the body alone and saving 90% of the original body.”
He added: “Arrow Media, commissioned by Channel 4, spent a day at Bridgnorth filming before they joined us at the Ty Croes race circuit on Anglesey the following day, where we had the Lindner Nocker on track for the first time in 50 years. It was a historic moment and we are looking forward to watching it on the screen.”
Other recent activity includes the second series of Cars That Rock. In this series, Brian Johnson gets to indulge his passion for all things automotive and episode one saw him explore what makes the Jaguar brand so special by taking a look at its illustrious heritage.
In his travels he met legendary Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis, who helped develop some of the marque’s most celebrated race cars.
Goldthorp said: “It was a great experience to show Brian around our facilities and exciting as well. Some of our engineers are AC/DC fans and had to look twice to believe what they were seeing.”
