eBay and Silverstone Classic manage to rebuild the Range Rover Classic in just three days, now thats good going.

• Fergus Walkinshaw led a team of expert restorers at eBay RESTORATION LIVE

Festival goers at this weekend’s Silverstone Classic (29-31 July) experienced a once-in-lifetime chance to see a 1983 Range Rover brought back to life over the course of just three days.

eBay, the festival’s official parts and accessories partner, challenged racing driver and car restorer Fergus Walkinshaw to revive the vehicle in front of a live audience at eBay’s RESTORATION LIVE.

Starting at 7.00am on Friday morning, Fergus and his team of skilled mechanics guided the crowd through every step of the project as they renovated the iconic first-generation Range Rover using only parts bought from online marketplace eBay.

The crew worked around the clock to get the Range Rover ready for its unveiling on stage at the Mike Brewer Car Clinic on Sunday.

The project included replacing the suspension and the exhaust system, as well as a host of other jobs. The Range Rover was returned to its original condition, even sourcing rare parts such as a section of carpet covering the spare wheel and the front bumper trim.

On Sunday afternoon, the off-roader was driven onto the eBay stage for Mike Brewer’s Car Clinic in front of a crowd of festival-goers.

Mike described the breakneck restoration as “a miracle”. “If you had seen this car three days ago, you would not have believed it could have looked like this,” he said on stage, before Fergus took the crowd through the process of sourcing hundreds of parts from eBay and overhauling the car in just under three days.

RESTORATION LIVE also hosted David Newell's gloriously restored Triumph GT6 Mk3. David was one of three amateur restorers selected to take part in the first ever eBay Car Challenge. David and the owners of a Volkswagen Beetle and Riley Kestrel 1300 secured a £4,000 restoration budget from eBay and set about restoring their classics in painstaking detail in just three months.

David poured “blood, sweat and tears – literally” into his "poor man's E-Type", replacing both rear wings among hundreds of new parts. The Triumph was proudly displayed next to the Ranger Rover pit over the course of Silverstone Classic and took part in the official Triumph parade lap on Saturday afternoon.

Murray Lambell, eBay’s director of retail car parts & accessories, said, “Watching Fergus and the team bring two tons of Range Rover back to life was an amazing spectacle. As soon as they fired up the engine for the first time on the last morning, the RESTORATION LIVE crowd burst into a round of applause, which was amazing."

When Fergus handed back the keys to the proud owner live on the eBay stage, he presented him with the original sales brochure from 1983 too. Fergus was able to find every part he needed from eBay, using 80 business sellers from the online marketplace ensuring that he had everything Fergus and his team needed.  

Murray added, “It was also fantastic to have David and his glorious Triumph GT6 Mk3 with us for the festival. Having seen pictures of the Triumph before the eBay Car Challenge, he’s done a superb job to have it ready for Silverstone Classic and we’re really glad to have helped him get back on the road.”

JAMES HUNT - Special 40th anniversary celebrations of the flamboyant Englishman’s title winning 1976 season.

• Special 40^th anniversary celebrations of the flamboyant Englishman’s title winning season  
• Freddie Hunt drives 1976 championship winning McLaren M23
• Iconic circuit witnessed three of Hunt’s most famous F1 victories

The headline grabbing career of one of Britain’s most charismatic and colourful sportsmen will be celebrated at this summer’s Silverstone Classic (29-31 July). It’s exactly 40 years since hard driving, fast living James Hunt overcame all the odds to win the FIA Formula One World Championship in 1976 – a dramatic feat recently acclaimed in the award-winning movie Rush.

Hunt sadly passed away in 1993 at the age of just 45 but the legend lives on and the ruby 40th anniversary of his crowning achievement will be marked at the world’s biggest historic motor racing festival in July, with special displays curated by his two sons Freddie and Tom. These displays will include a number of James’ most notable road and racing cars plus rarely seen trophies and memorabilia from the flamboyant Englishman’s title winning 1976 season.

The special celebrations at Silverstone are very appropriate, too, as Hunt savoured more Formula One success at the superfast Northamptonshire venue than at any other circuit worldwide. As a much-loved underdog, home hero Hunt scored a hugely popular maiden F1 win at Silverstone in April 1974 when racing for the locally based Hesketh team. Although the BRDC International Trophy was non-championship, the grid featured many of the era’s top teams and drivers.

Two years later, Hunt ignited his title winning campaign with a second confidence boosting International Trophy victory, this time for his new team McLaren. And it was at Silverstone that, as reigning champion, he won his only British Grand Prix after an epic dice with John Watson in 1977.

“I know the crowds at Silverstone back in the seventies really took my dad’s heroics to their hearts, so it’s going to be very special for all of us in the family to be marking the 40^th anniversary of his World Championship at this summer’s Silverstone Classic,” enthused Freddie Hunt who drove one of his father’s title winning McLaren M23s during today’s Silverstone Classic Media Preview curtain-raiser at the legendary Grand Prix circuit.

“I’ve seen so many photos and films of my father racing the M23 that it really was emotional to get behind the wheel and experience just a smidgeon of what it must have been like to race these fantastic F1 cars in period. It really was a remarkable era and one which the Classic always celebrates in style.”

Indeed, the McLaren M23 and its successor the M26 which Hunt raced to British Grand Prix victory in 1977, will feature in the two rounds of the FIA Masters Historic Formula One Championship – among the many highlights on the action-packed Silverstone Classic schedule. Freddie, himself, is also planning to race a giant-killing Mini in the showdown for Big Engine Touring Cars from the early sixties.

“It’s a tremendous privilege to have Freddie and the Hunt family so involved in this year’s Classic, 40 years after James famously took the title in 1976,” said Nick Wigley CEO of event organiser Goose Live Events. “Knowing just how special James was to the fans at Silverstone, we invited Freddie to last year’s event and have been making plans to celebrate this important anniversary ever since.”

eBay and Silverstone Classics collaborate to rebuild a 1982 Range Rover live, during the event.

• eBay announced as official parts and accessories partner  
• Show-goers to witness 4x4 classic being restored to its former glory  

The organisers of the record-breaking Silverstone Classic (29-31 July) are delighted to announce eBay, the global online marketplace, will be joining the event, for the first time, as the official parts and accessories partner.

It is a significant collaboration that will add yet another crowd-pleasing component to this summer’s staging of the world’s biggest historic motor racing festival. Demonstrating that eBay is the premier destination for car parts show-goers will be able to follow the live restoration of a 1982 classic Range Rover over the three-day event.

Hosted by eBay, RESTORATION LIVE with Fergus Walkinshaw is sure to be a hugely popular attraction for the tens of thousands of show-goers, many of whom will be travelling to Silverstone in their own lovingly restored classics.

Walkinshaw and his team will guide the crowd through every step of the project as they renovate the iconic first-generation Range Rover using only items bought from eBay. 

Whether it’s a new replacement body panel or an original piece of internal trim, finding the right pieces shouldn’t prove too tricky as there are more than eight million live listings of car parts and accessories on ebay.co.uk to buy at any time. 

Indeed, eBay is home to one of the largest collections of motoring products in the world and, thus, the ideal destination for everything from replacement parts for the family car to the final rare piece in a classic restoration puzzle.

Murray Lambell, eBay’s director of retail car parts and accessories, said: “We love the Silverstone Classic. It attracts everyone from the highly experienced restorer right through to people who simply just love their car – just like eBay does – so it’s a great event for us to be part of. 

“With such a huge selection of products Fergus and the team will easily find everything they need when they restore the Range Rover. eBay can help with everything from an everyday replacement part – to a rare component in a classic restoration.”

As for the Range Rover, once it is restored to its former glory, it will appear on stage during the Mike Brewer Car Clinic on Sunday at the Classic, with Mike and Fergus answering questions and sharing their experience of the complex project.

“We are understandably enthused to be partnering a company of eBay’s global esteem and importance,” said Nick Wigley, CEO of Silverstone Classic organiser Goose Live Events. 

“All the more so as eBay will be helping us to add yet another fascinating new dimension to this summer’s festival. A large number of our visitors are no strangers to restoration projects, and I’m sure they will really enjoy seeing a 34-year-old Range Rover being restored to its original grandeur.”

All tickets for the 2016 Silverstone Classic must be purchased in advance.  Adult admission starts at just £42 and sticks to the Classic’s widely-praised ‘access all areas’ policy, thus providing admission to both National and Wing race paddocks, trackside grandstands, the vintage funfair, air displays and the live music concerts which this year include chart-toppers The Boomtown Rats, Reef and The Stranglers.