Body work and respray

Planning on getting the Montreal body work smartened up and the car resprayed this year. Never know what you're gong to find when you start on rust bubbles, so I would be keen to hear back from anyone who has a recommendation for a garage dealing in classic Alfa bodywork/restorations. I'm keen to find the right garage and there's no better feedback that from someone who's used them.

Any thoughts appreciated.

How far are you prepared to travel? Personally I'm not too well up on facilities near cornwall but if you can get to South East then can give you a few.

Ian Ellis always gets good recommendations, he's over in Brighton, not too far from you... well relatively anyway.
How's the GTA going?

Willing to go where ever really. It's all relative - once you get out of Cornwall it's drive anyway. Just want to get the right people on the job.

Hi VeloceMitch - GTA's amazing. What a car they are! Tried to post in the 'for sale' thread about your GTA to say what a nice car it was, and definately worth the money - but I'm not able to post there... Hope the GTV's going well.

Thanks Chris, hopefully I have another viewing next week, another contact from AO.
GTV's fine at the moment, but unfortunately having to sit outside in the rain whilst I do some work on the Moggie thou.

Originally Posted by halfnelson

I'm keen to find the right garage and there's no better feedback that from someone who's used them.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Anyone?????

C'mn Lead loaders, puddlers, down that way, help our friend HN out with some suggestions.:

Two weeks ago I picked up my 1974 105 GTV from a small repair shop in Devon that had carried out some restoration/repairs so you could try them.
I crashed my Bertie at last years Alfaholics track day so they replaced the front and rear panels and one front wing and managed to patch up some of the other panels. The paint work was a little tatty so they took out all the glass and removed all the brightwork and did a full respray. The work took some time but was excellent. The paint job is particularly good with all panels being totally smooth giving a deep mirror finish.
They are not Alfa experts (their main work is repairing 4 x 4s) but the body work and sprayer (Malcolm) has repaired and restored a number of 105s over the years.
Why not give them a call as they are in Silverton, Devon so not too far from you.
The guy who runs it is called Brian. The number is 01392 860 604.
Chris

Been away for a week in China. Now if only we could get a decent restoration facility and cheap shipping out there we'd all be able to afford that Concours job of our dreams.

But back to reality, for bodywork, other possibilities this part of the world are MGS in Purley, excellent reputation, not the cheapest but apparently value for money.

Also Rusper Alfa in er, Rusper, Sussex. Done some work for me and seemed pretty straight with some nice work in there.

Ian Ellis also has a good reputation.

Cheers guys,

I'll start looking into the places you've mentioned. Recommendations and reputations are definately what I'm looking for. I certainly don't mind travelling...

Thanks again

Chris

Scott's Speed Shop in East Sussex are doing our '64 Sprint GT at the moment - looking like a very good job - you can see some pics under Restoration on Scotts Speed Shop Alfa Giulietta Restoration

Thanks Geoff, that's looking like a very nice job. How do you find them price wise and with deadlines?

Chris

Price wise - well I guess everything is expensive in this game - they have been very good at understanding what is important to us if that makes sense. We want to great looking, rust free and lasting job. We don't need concours - I'll be doing the odd trackday and maybe the Goodwood sprint in the car. We want performance enhancements, but only those that would have been available to a keen club racer at the time. And we want to be able to drive down to Lake Garda for a holiday in the car, so we're not looking for an over-stripped out finish. Oh, and we want it to continue looking like a very early Sprint GT, not a GTA replica! So for example they've had the rev counter converted to electronic for reliability, but you won't be able to tell that!

And as an ex-Caterham racer , I do want decent tyres (soft compound Yoko 48's on order now the chassis is 'rolling' again) and a reasonably track oriented setup!

So I guess there's was a lot of 'opinion' for them to deal with

Deadlines - well we have tried ourselves to do the work over a period of about ten months or so - to ease our own cash flow! The target is August to make sure that we can park the car on the Lavant Bank for the Goodwood Revival in September. They've been happy to do the work as and when - and now that we're looking at the rebuild proper, they seem able to accelerate to make sure we do hit the target!