Range Rover VELAR number 40 helps heroes

On 4 November 2010 Land Rover donated the 1,000,000th Range Rover built at the Solihull factory to the 'Help for Heroes' charity who will auction it later this year to raise funds.

The car had been completed on the production line during the early hours of the morning and after a ceremony at the factory it was driven to Earl's Court in London by Phil Popham, Managing Director of Land Rover, and Roger Crathorne of Land Rover Marketing.

At the invitation of Land Rover, a small group of three 'heritage' Range Rovers, representing the development of the model over the last 40 years, were invited to escort the 1,000,000th car where it was handed over to Jeremy Clarkson, one of the patrons of the charity.

Range Rover VELAR prototype number 40, refurbished by us earlier this year, and its owner were privileged to be invited to join the escort and featured in the photographs at Earl's Court with Clarkson and veterans Private Derek Derenalagi (left) and Lance Corporal Matt Croucher GC (right).

Mitchell Motors would encourage support for the Help for Heroes charity. Should you wish to assist them via donation or volunteering, please contact H4H directly at http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/.

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Land Rover VELAR with engine bay refurbished by Mitchell Motors features on front cover of Land Rover Monthly magazine

As detailed in a previous blog, we were pleased to discover that the Range Rover VELAR we recently completed an engine bay refurbishment on has been subsequently featured on the front cover and prominently within Land Rover Monthly magazine.

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Alfa Romeo P3 repaint

Alfa Romeo P3 repainted and pictured below this spring at Prescott.

Another rare car entrusted to Mitchell Motors.

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Ferrari 328 rust repair..and another satisfied customer.

 As reported in the Wessex Ferrari owners club newsletter.

Ferrari Owners club (Wessex section) newsletter

A Ferrari owners club member had a rust problem with his Ferrari 328. As the narritive states, we more than met his expectations of a superb job.

Should you need similar work undertaking, please call Andy Mitchell on 01747 820223.

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Mitchell Motors advertisment featuring Ferrari 500 Superfast

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Ferrari 500 Superfast restoration completed

Full bare metal respray and refurbishment carried out.

 

Two areas of particular interest with this rebuild were:

• Finding old paint in the windscreen area that when analysed with a spectrometer and with slight tinting to colour correct, enabled us to match the paint to how it came from the factory.
• Locating 40 year old hides for the interior.

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Bristol 405 drophead on display after a full body off restoration.

Glad to be re-acquainted with this beautiful car and we are pleased that the owner loves it all the more for the work we undertook.

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Bristol 404 we restored being shown at a recent car show

A proud owner of a car we restored shows off his vehicle at a recent classic car show.

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Bristol 401 - Refurbishment completed

Completed work.

Bristol 401 after lower body repairs and full bare metal respray.

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MG TF - Full body off restoration

Please bookmark this blog for continuing updates on the body restoration of an MG TF.
As you can see chassis already looks superb and we cannot wait to work our magic on the body.

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Ferrari 250 Lusso bare metal respray begins

Time had taken its toll on the existing paintwork and the car was in urgent need of a sympathetic bare metal respray. We are pleased to be carrying out this task.

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Lancia Flaminia Touring Bodied Drophead from 1964: Nut and bolt restoration

Total body off, full nut and bolt restoration over two years.

The hurdles we had to overcome to bring this car back to its former glory were multitude, but the pictures below speak for themselves. The end result is superb.

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Range Rover Velar to Berlin!

The pre-production Range Rover Velar NXC245H we renovated earlier this summer has recently returned from Germany where it participated in the Hamburg-Berlin Klassik rally. To commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the Range Rover, Land Rover Germany entered a three-car team of Range Rovers in the event...appropriately enough, in red, white and blue colours!

The rally followed a meandering route across northern Germany from Hamburg to Wolfsburg, where a tremendous evening of entertainment was laid on by VW Audi at the Autostadt complex, and then on to Berlin.

Team Range Rover managed to come fourth in the team awards and NXC245H finished in 36^th place out of a total of 180 entrants.

To quote our client's own words "...I was delighted with the work on the car...the tailgate is a masterpiece!"

Picture of the car in Berlin (copyright Craig Pusey) shown below:

VELARS in Berlin (Picture Craig Pusey)

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Bentley MKVI ash frame repair and full body respray

Fully detailed Bentley MKVI engine compartment

Lagonda V12 bare metal respray just completed

Sorry for the quality of the picture, but the vehicle was tucked away!

Lagonda V12. Bare metal respray. Superb!

Mitchell Motors are used by classic car insurers.

It is common knowledge that insurers are careful with their funds, demand good quality work and require contracts to be completed on time.

Mitchell Motors are regularly used by insurers to complete accident repair work on classic vehicles. A testiment to the quality of what we do.

Future projects.........

Pictures below show the eclectic nature of the vehicles we restore or refurbish.

All are imminent future projects that include some rare cars with an incredible provenance. Please subscribe to the news link if you wish to be kept informed of the progress of these projects.

Aston Martin DB2/4 with rare provenance

Bristol

AC

Aston Martin V8 respray and detail

A few minor blemishes that amounted to the car requiring a full paint refurbishment.

Aston Martin V8 after respray

Derby Bentley. A nightmare in wood

An example of a task very few restorers would be competent to take on, being a full pre-war Derby Bentley restoration.

Wood frame in need of expert help

Bentley in need of the Mitchell Motors touch

Bristol 402 - Full body off restoration

Bristol 402 mid-restoration

The client wanted a restoration that kept as much of the original vehicle as possible, conducted by a restorer that knows the Bristol marque inside out. Having previously restored concours winning Bristols, we were the natural choice.

Arguably retaining as much of the aluminium body is a more difficult approach than throwing it away and creating a new one from scratch. But would that be the correct way forward? In this case both ourselves and the customer felt no and jointly we have adopted an approach of saving as much of the original body as possible.

With extensive knowledge of the pitfalls of restoring this type of vehicle means that our clients are not paying for our learning curve and additionally end up with a well executed result.

Attention to detail guaranteed

Engine bay refurbishment of a pre-production VELAR Range Rover

Having already restored a collectable Land-Rover Range Rover CSK, we were delighted when we were asked to undertake an engine bay refurbishment of one of the twenty pilot-build Range Rover Velar 100 inch station wagons Land-Rover created prior to full production starting.

Why are they known as VELAR? Two opinions have been put forward. One version states because Mike Dunn, an engineer at Alvis wanted to create a decoy name for pre-production Range Rovers and out of the letters in ALVIS and ROVER created the pseudonym VELAR. The alternative is that the name is an amalgam of  V Eight LAnd Rover.

The car we re-invigorated was NXC 245H being chassis number 40.

As always with jobs such as this experience, sympathy with original production methods, attention to detail and good paint practice amongst many other issues all add together to create a job well done.

Engine bay detailed and with a few miles under the VELAR's wheels

...and again

We have already been commissioned to restore another Range Rover (picture below) and loving these vehicles and with the relevent experience would welcome enquiries for more restorations of this type. Please contact Andy Mitchell on 01747 820223 to discuss any work you feel your vehicle requires.

Early stages of a Land-Rover Range Rover restoration

Mitchell Motors - An introduction

A lot happens at Mitchell Motors and therefore, we have decided to set up a "news" section on our website to keep previous, present and potential future clients a better irdea of our range of skills and experience.


In the first instance, please look at our website. It has a wealth of information about us including cars created from scratch, concours wins for cars we have restored and a small amount about us as a firm.


Having proved ourselves with cars that are old style classics, over the next year we will be targeting more recent classics including 70's and 80's exotica as well as more mainstream modern classics such as Ford Escort RS2000.