Latest news with #carrestoration
The Sun
4 days ago
- Automotive
- The Sun
I tracked down my grandfather's Mini after it'd been lost for DECADES – I restored & now it's worth over £12,000
A CLASSIC car enthusiast has shared the heartwarming story of his Morris Mini, a cherished family heirloom that has been passed down through four generations. Jamie Garrett, from Oxfordshire, was recently named a runner-up in Lancaster Insurance 's prestigious Pride of Ownership award for 2025, after showcasing his beautifully restored and much-loved classic car. 5 5 5 5 5 Speaking to the classic car experts at Lancaster Insurance, Jamie revealed the iconic little motor was originally purchased by his grandfather in 1965 and became an integral part of the family's life. Indeed, it was used for everything from summer holidays in France and Italy to teaching multiple family members, including Jamie's father, how to drive. The car later served as Jamie's father's work vehicle - before rust claimed it in 1977, rendering it undrivable and leaving it off the road for decades. In 1996, an attempt was made to restore the Mini but the project stalled and the car was eventually given away. For years, it was thought to be lost forever - until Jamie tracked it down in 2019. Against all odds, he bought the car back and embarked on the ambitious task of restoring it to its former glory - despite having no prior experience in car restoration. As expected, Jamie faced numerous challenges, including a failed initial attempt, but his determination never wavered and by working with specialists, including a skilled panel expert from the Real Mini Company, the Mini's shell was brought back to life. Better yet, Jamie decided to keep the restoration project a secret from his father until 2023, when he unveiled the fully restored Mini as a surprise - leaving his father overwhelmed with emotion. Together, they worked on the final touches before taking the car for its first drive to visit Jamie's grandfather, who apparently, when he first saw it, said: 'It was never this good!' Speaking to Lancaster Insurance, Jamie said: 'As a family we are immensely proud of the car, and the story that goes with it makes it even more special and brings joy to everyone that meets her. 'She will live on as a lasting memory of my grandparents who are now no longer with us.' The motor now serves as both a functional car and a showpiece - regularly appearing at various events. Lancaster's Pride of Ownership award, as voted for by classic car enthusiasts, recognises not only craftsmanship and dedication. Yvonne Gosney, the firm's Senior Trading Manager, said: 'The work Jamie has completed on this Mini is nothing short of exceptional, and we congratulate him on his deserving podium position in this year's Pride of Ownership. 'Jamie's Mini is a powerful reminder of how classic car restoration can be about more than just metal - it can bring a family's history back to life.' The Morris Mini has become a favourite among classic car enthusiasts and has risen in price in recent years - with the median price, according to the Classic Valuer, being £13,616.
CTV News
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- CTV News
Winkler police chief restoring car into vintage police cruiser
Ryan Hunt is pictured driving in his restored car on July 9, 2025. (Harrison Shin/CTV News) A Manitoba man combined his love for car restoration and his work with the Winkler Police Service into a clever creation that's catching the attention of his community. Winkler Police Chief Ryan Hunt has transformed a 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme—which he bought in 2006 as his personal vehicle—into a version of a vintage police car. Hunt said the restoration, which includes a custom design, has been a labour of love. 'I just thought it'd be cool to add a police logo onto it that's kind of similar to our old Winkler police logo,' he said. 'We tried to make it look as similar as possible, and then to add the emergency light on the roof.' The task was not easy and required Hunt to undertake a frame-off restoration. 'So, the frame came off, (I) powder coated and painted,' he said. 'The underside is all painted, new interior—every nut and bolt has been cleaned up, and it's basically a new car." Though it's not being used for actual police duties, the car is garnering attention. 'Lots of positive responses,' Hunt said. 'And when it's parked out here in front of the police service, there's people walking by, and they take pictures of it.' Hunt said he hopes to drive the car in Winkler's upcoming Tractor Trek, adding that he sees the car as more than just a mode of transportation. 'It's just another way to connect with the community.'
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
A 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL ‘Gullwing' Coupe in Photos
More from Robb Report This Stunning 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 'Gullwing' Could Fetch Over $1.5 Million at Auction Why the Iconic Porsche 356 Is a Bucket-List Classic for Any Collection The New Mercedes-AMG Might Be the Last Gas-Powered CLA Ever Best of Robb Report The 2024 Chevy C8 Corvette: Everything We Know About the Powerful Mid-Engine Beast The World's Best Superyacht Shipyards The ABCs of Chartering a Yacht Click here to read the full article. This 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 'Gullwing' Coupe has been owned by the same family for 30 years. Revealed at New York's International Motor Sports Show in 1954, the production 300 SL ('Super Light') was based on the already renowned 1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL race car. The model is built on a tubular spaceframe. The 300 SL was pivotal in having Mercedes-Benz not only survive but thrive in the United States during the middle of the last century. With a striking red interior, this car was restored by a team of specialists that have won awards at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. The 2,996 cc inline-six engine, benefiting from Bosch mechanical fuel injection, makes roughly 212 hp. A close-up of the gearshift for the car's four-speed manual transmission. The vehicle's second owner, Georgina Garcia Conde, acquired the car for $1,500 in 1969. The car now carries a high-end estimate of $1.55 million.
The Drive
25-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
An OG Mini Coachbuilder Is Back in Business With This Ian Callum Collab
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Venerated car designer Ian Callum has worked for a few big automakers, but is currently focusing on adjacent projects like reviving the Aston Martin Vanquish and even making a street-legal Jaguar C-X75 concept car with his own outfit, Callum Designs. Today, his team announced a new project: The Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum. I thought that was some kind of home restoration lifestyle brand, but shame on me. It is, in fact, one of the best partners for a Mini restoration project you could get. Wood and Pickett, Ltd. goes back to the 1960s—the company was modding original Minis to highline specs when the tiny cars were new. It technically started in 1947, when Bill Wood and Les Pickett left jobs at another coachbuilder called Hooper & Co to start their own thing. The car industry was very different back then, and there was enough market for upgrading cars for quite a few coachbuilders to exist. In a sense, trim levels as we know them today were being made by small aftermarket outfits rather than OEMs. Wood and Pickett focused on Minis after the Radford Mini de Ville came out in '63 and proved that there was a market for high-class upgrades on the compact cars. Wood and Pickett's own Mini variant was known as the Margrave, and it was clearly good enough to get some attention as the little company was able to poach several key managers from rival Radford in just a few short years. The coachbuilder eventually expanded its lineup to include customized versions of the first-gen Range Rover and a few other popular British cars through the '70s and '80s. Wood and Pickett In the 1990s, there were some ownership changes, and the brand pivoted from coachbuilding to parts and accessories. As far as I can tell from my little morning research session here, Wood and Pickett's next milestone was in 2022 when British classic car parts specialist Motaclan Limited acquired it. But as of today, Motaclan's Wood and Pickett link brings you to a new page dedicated to the Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum—which might be the best possible way for the coachbuilder to make a comeback. This brings us to the machine itself—an extremely cool rendition of the old Mini with minimal modernization and maximal class. I don't even like restomods all that much in principle, but this thing is perfecto. As it's pitched from the purveyors: 'The Wood and Pickett Mini by CALLUM is a redefinition of the classic British icon. Built on a fully restored Mk5 Sportspack body shell, it incorporates an entirely bespoke design package, drawing on both Wood and Pickett's coachbuilding legacy and CALLUM's contemporary design expertise.' Swipe through these images to see it from every angle: The 'Mk5' design was the one used by Mini from 1997 to 2001. Yes, the original Mini was being made that recently. It's tough to tell the difference between the '60s Mini body and one from Y2K at a glance, but this new Callum version will be a little easier to spot. Intense fender flares and aero splitters give the car a much more aggressive stance, though the Mini's charming friendliness is still safely intact. Auxiliary lighting in the grille and a slick taillight design modernize the exterior just enough to look good without being gross. Callum Design Aside from all the decorative details you can see in these pictures, this car will get a 'rebuilt 1310cc Stage 3 road/rally engine' with a performance cylinder head, twin-point injection, and a dual exhaust. It's supposed to be good for 110 brake horsepower. Should be more than enough to motivate this little car (an OG Mini weighs under 1,500 pounds). Behind the wheels are 8.4-inch disc brakes and what's just described as a 'road-tuned suspension kit,' likely meaning, not track-level stiff. The wheel design is the biggest triumph here to me, though. The design and size (when's the last time you saw 13s? ) are absolutely perfect and round out the restomod's whole look exceptionally well. Inside is kept pretty simple and stately. There's a small DIN-style screen for infotainment, but everything else is old school. Callum Designs shared, 'No two builds will be alike, each customer will collaborate closely with CALLUM's design team to create a Mini that reflects their individual vision,' so it'll be cool to see what people do with these when they start popping up at car meets. They'll be hand-made in England on a 'limited production run' starting at £75,000, which is about $102,000 at this moment. Tough to say what one of these would exactly end up costing in America, but you might be able to avoid tariffs by sneaking it into your carry-on luggage. Callum Design Know anything else interesting about classic Mini restoration? Drop the author a note at
Motor Trend
23-06-2025
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
Driven: To Make an Old '72 Chevy C20 New, Icon Made a New Truck Old
For many of us, making an old car or truck run like new again is to restore its magic. Sometimes when we do, though, we're reminded how much better new cars are engineered than their progenitors. With enough time and money, we can re-engineer the past, but at some point, it risks becoming a modern Ship of Theseus. That's where Icon usually stops, but for its 1972 Chevrolet C20 reimagination, the company decided to start in an entirely different place. Icon transformed a 1972 Chevy C20 by fitting it onto a modern 2019 Silverado chassis, combining vintage looks with new performance. The project took four years and around $600,000 to build, offering modern features in an old shell, appealing to those desiring classic aesthetics with updated mechanics. This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article Read Next Out With Some of the Old When Icon 'normally' builds a vehicle, particularly one of its one-off Derelict or Reformer creations, it usually replaces the original chassis, suspension, and drivetrain with modern aftermarket components customized to the build. It's expensive and time-consuming, but it has the effect of maintaining the old car's charm with modernized power, handling, and braking. The result is generally magnificent, if you want it to drive like an old car but better. Icon does brisk business with those folks. Some, though, really just want a new vehicle that looks old. Something that rides, handles, stops, and goes like the other cars in the garage but looks like it could be their figurative grandparents. In With the Somewhat New As with most Icon vehicles, the original chassis and mechanical bits of the old '72 Chevy donor farm truck are still tossed. But rather than adding a custom Art Morrison frame, Currie Axles, GM crate engine, and so on and massaging it all until everything meshes, for this build Icon decided to try starting with parts designed to play nicely together. Specifically, the bottom half of a 2019 Chevrolet Silverado. Barely six years old, the lightly used Silverado work truck was half the age of the average vehicle in America today rather than nearly five times as old, as the C20 is. As you've no doubt noticed, new trucks have gotten considerably larger than old pickups, so some modification was necessary. Surprisingly, shortening the Silverado's ladder frame by 8 inches just ahead of the rear axle was all that was needed to make a half-century-old single-cab, long-bed fit on a modern crew-cab, short-bed frame. Add in some new mounts for the cab and bed, and it was mostly good to go. Of course, shortening the wheelbase meant the rear driveshaft wouldn't fit, either, so it had to be chopped, as well. Otherwise, the powertrain from the Silverado is entirely stock, save a modified engine air intake and cone filter. Modern 5.3-liter V-8 engine, modern transmission, modern suspension, modern brakes, all designed by the enormous GM engineering department to work together with a considerably heavier truck. Keeping everything as it was on the new truck means this 'old' Chevy C20 gains traction control, stability control, an electric parking brake, and the factory trailer brake controller. You can use it to haul and tow roughly the same way as you would any newer Silverado 1500. Respect Your Elders Making the Silverado fit the C20 as opposed to the other way around meant minimal modification to the old truck's bodywork. It originally came with a V-8, so it had little trouble accepting a new one, though a bit of firewall work was needed to fit it with a Vintage Air HVAC system. Aside from that, the team fixed some rust in the door frames and on the doors themselves just below the windows and matched the paint and patina so well you can't tell. Not content with stopping there, the bumpers and even the modern, Icon-designed wheels were painted to match the surface rust spotting on the roof. Equally subtle concessions to modernity can be found if you poke around. The lighting is all LED now, including strips hidden under the bed rails activated either by opening the tailgate or an old-looking toggle switch under the dash. The tailgate has a gas strut fitted to it, making opening and closing easier, and modular tie-down rails on the bed floor have been added to better secure cargo. Icon badges on the rockers behind the front wheels and the cast metal Icon lizard between the hood and windshield on the passenger side are more easily spotted. So, too, is the independent front suspension, if you know enough about old trucks to know it doesn't belong. Otherwise, the exposed suspension and frame rails just look unusually big and clean for a truck whose body has clearly seen more than five decades of farm labor. Preserving that character was paramount, so the original gas filler on the cab was retained, along with the actually functional locking fuel door and filler on the bedside. Even the screws in the doors and trim from long removed towing mirrors were left where they were. Newer On the Inside Far greater concessions were necessary in the cab. In a modern truck like the Silverado, everything electric is connected, and severing or messing too much with those connections will cause enormous software problems. The gauges aren't just gauges, the radio isn't just a radio, and so on. That means the stock 2019 Silverado gauges, infotainment screen, and most of the buttons and switches had to be retained. Icon being Icon, the utmost was done to design custom bezels that reflected the 1972 truck's original setup as much as possible and paint them to match the original metal dash. We aren't gonna lie, it's jarring at first, but after a few hours with the truck you kind of stop noticing the incongruity (or at least stop being bothered by it). The Silverado's analog gauges help some. As is the case with the powertrain, there are benefits to retaining the Silverado's modern electronics. This means Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are available, while the computer retains features such as cruise control and automatic high-beams. Elsewhere, things are a bit more integrated. Manually activating the high-beams is still done via the old-school foot switch. A new Ididit steering column with shifter and topped by the original steering wheel (albeit wrapped in leather) feels appropriately vintage, as does the Glide Engineering bench seat finished in vintage-looking materials and decorated with custom end caps that match the exterior chrome and faux-wood trim. Icon's typical machined metal climate control knobs look the part, and although the new, circular air vents under either corner of the dash don't look original, they do look appropriately vintage. Everything New is Old Again Unlocking the doors with a remote feels odd, but not nearly as odd as the old truck's driving position. The C20's massive steering wheel is nearly in your lap, and your feet sit more on top of the pedals than in front of them. Three-point seat belts feel familiar if not period appropriate. Drop it into drive, and the 5.3-liter V-8 leaps ahead with unexpected authority. The stock transmission and rear-end gearing were retained, but each was designed for a much heavier truck and have the effect of making this one feel far quicker than it is or than its 355 hp and 383 lb-ft would suggest. A light touch on the throttle goes a long way, especially in a parking lot. The big wheel also requires some acclimating. There's a little play on-center like an old truck, but the ratio is very much that of a new truck, and a little bit of steering returns big results. You end up having so much leverage you can drive with your pinkies. Once you've adapted to those eccentricities, though, it feels exactly like driving a last-gen Silverado. The ride is the same, the braking is the same, and the handling is the same. You can therefore drive it just like a newer truck, which is to say much quicker and with more fluidity than any truck made last century. The goal of making an old truck drive like a new one was unequivocally achieved. So familiar is the drive you start to wonder why the cabin isn't quieter. There's just no getting around 1970s aerodynamics, so you get wind noise around the A-pillars. The sensation of driving a modern truck is so strong, though, you forget how much of it isn't. Things like the crank windows (the customer's preference) and the still-functional triangular vent windows bring you back to the reality of the situation. Likewise, the exhaust note. Old trucks are plain louder, with a distinct lope in their firing order. Other than shortening things up, Icon didn't mess with the modern exhaust system, either. Naturally, then, it sounds like your average V-8 work truck or moving van. Something with a little more grumble wouldn't have hurt, but it's not what the customer wanted. We didn't test its off-road capabilities, but you can imagine they're slightly better than the donor truck thanks to the improved breakover angle, a side effect of the shortened wheelbase. The electronically engaged four-wheel drive system is entirely stock, but the more aggressive all-terrain tires should work better than whatever came from the factory in 2019 or 1972. Quicker and Easier If No Less Expensive Not having to engineer anything new below the bodywork paid big dividends in the build time. While this pilot project took about four years to sort out, the next three already ordered should take about a year each now that the R&D is done. Then again, if you'd like a newer donor truck—something Icon is looking into—there will be some additional R&D time and expense to consider. Providing your own, clean C20 helps, as finding good-condition donors at a reasonable price is getting harder as the model gets more popular, both with the general public and Icon customers alike. (It's become the second-most popular order behind the company's restomod Ford Broncos.) Don't make the mistake of assuming the modern drivetrain significantly reduces the price tag, however. This first-of-its-kind truck rang up to the tune of about $600,000, and subsequent models will still run in the neighborhood of $500,000 to $550,000 before you start customizing things. No one said grafting an old truck onto a new one would be cheap or easy, but the result is worth it—that is if you can afford it, of course.
