Classic Motor Cars Ltd, the company responsible for the Mark 2 By Callum, has handed over control to it's staff.

A highly successful and globally renowned classic car restoration company in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, which last year turned over £5.2 million, has been given to the staff by its owner. Classic Motor Cars Ltd employs more than sixty staff and has restored some of the world’s most important cars including many famous Jaguars.

The company has become an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT), which means that the staff will own and run the business themselves.

Peter Neumark, who has owned and chaired the company since its inception in 1993, said: "I am nearer seventy than sixty and Nick Goldthorp, who founded this great business with me and has been largely responsible for where we are today, is now approaching retirement age, so we felt we had a duty to oversee a passing of responsibility, and who better than the workforce themselves."

So on Friday 26th of August 2016, a majority shareholding owned by the chairman was transferred into a new entity The Classic Motor Cars Ltd Employee Shareholder Trust, thereby passing control to a trust set up for the benefit of the employees of CMC.

Peter Neumark added: “This sort of structure best exemplified by the John Lewis Partnership was deemed to be the best home for the company to ensure its future, safeguarding the jobs of its highly skilled workforce and providing stability for future growth and prosperity.

"Virtually every example of an EOT business we looked at showed greater profitability, greater productivity, better staff retention and ultimately of course happier customers. I am extremely proud of what we have achieved and I look forward to watching the company continue to set the standards for world-class car restoration."

Tim Leese, Managing Director of the new operational board, said: “These are very exciting times and the whole team is very grateful for Peter’s generosity and everyone looks forward to making a greater contribution to the company’s future success.”

The day to day management of the business will be controlled by an operational board, chaired by David Barzilay and comprising of Managing Director Tim Leese, Production Director Tim Griffin, non-execs Nick Goldthorp and Richard Charlesworth (latterly of Bentley).

They in turn will report to a board of trustees who are responsible for the good governance of the company and ensuring it is run in the best interests of its beneficiaries, the employees.

The board of trustees is comprised of outside professionals, chaired by Peter Neumark with an employee trustee, Luke Martin, voted on by his fellow workers, and former non-exec operational board member Richard Coe.

Currently the company is working on more than 22 classic car restorations including many famous marques such as, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Lancia, amongst others.

One of the rarest cars in the world the 1936 Squire, one of only seven ever built, has been restored by CMC.

More than 4100 man-hours have gone into the restoration of this car

Leading classic car restorers Classic Motor Cars of Bridgnorth (CMC) have restored a 1936 Squire, one of only seven built, which has now been shortlisted for Restoration of the Year at the prestigious International Historic Motoring Awards 2015.

This charismatic, costly and extremely rare British sports car was displayed at the 2011 Retromobile event in Paris in a very sorry state, its upholstery had been providing home to a family of rodents and it had been completely stripped of paint. Peter Neumark, chairman of Classic Motor Cars (CMC), saw its potential and a deal was made for the Squire to undergo a complete rejuvenation at the company’s workshops in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, in the UK.

Managing Director of CMC Nick Goldthorp said: “No detail has been too small to ensure originality. The work was completed on 26^th May 2015, after more than 4100 man-hours. A finishing touch was the reissue of the Squire’s original registration number of CLO 5, forfeited on its export to the States in the 50s.”

CMC is no stranger to receiving accolades for its restorations. In 2011, the company won the Restoration of the Year award at the International Historic Motoring Awards for the epic restoration of the Lindner-Nocker Lightweight E-Type. 

The car had crashed in at the Montlhery circuit in 1964 and was so badly damaged that a complete restoration was thought to be impossible. After over 7,000 hours of work and using more than 90% of the original parts, CMC managed to bring it back to its former glory.

When the Squire arrived at CMC’s premises early in 2013 for a full nut and bolt restoration, it was practically complete but there were no spare parts. It had also undergone a few modifications over the years, which have all been carefully reversed to the state in which it left Squire’s Remenham Hill Works in 1936.

The original radiator shell was badly twisted so CMC fabricated a new one from brass. Even the missing quick-release caps on the radiator and petrol tank have been scrupulously reproduced using originals from another Squire for reference.

Although all of the instruments were present, a wooden dashboard had replaced the metal original. These were reconditioned and accommodated in a new plywood one, faced in aluminium and finished in the body colour as per the original specification.

When it came to restoring the body, all the original aluminium panels were carefully detached from the ash frame and re-beaten at CMC, saving as much of the original metal as possible. Over 2100 hours were spent by CMC’s head panel beater Luke Martin, who attended to all of the body work.

The car retained its original maroon colour thanks to examples of paint found inside the boot lid and on the engine bay plates, which allowed CMC’s John Langston to reproduce the original colour. The internal woodwork has also been painted in maroon.

The re-trimming was entrusted to CMC’s Tom Hampton, who coincidentally was responsible for reviving the interior of X103 (the second Squire to be completed).

Nick Goldthorp said: “The future of this Squire is now assured and is a credit to the team of skilled specialists at CMC that undertook this superb restoration.”

The car appeared today (Tuesday 17^th November) at the Phyllis Court Classic Motoring Group, which hosted four original Squire cars that were built in near Henley (Remenham Hill) from 1934 to 1936. 

Piers Flashman, President of the Classic Motoring Group, said:  “This was a marvellous opportunity, Phyllis Court Members Club has a long history in Henley and so have these famous cars. 

We know that only seven were built and we planned this event when we realised we could invite the owners of four of these cars to come together, to coincide with the publication of a history of the marque.’

All Squires that were present at Phyllis Court are privately owned and came together for the first time since they were manufactured in a small garage nearby. 

Members of the family of Adrian Squire, the founder, attended the event together with several relatives of the original management team responsible for making and selling the cars from a small showroom in Henley.

Classic Motor Cars, that makes Callums Jaguar MK II, is now part of five TV Shows.

Five major TV programmes have featured Classic Motor Cars of Bridgnorth (CMC), one of the country’s leading restoration companies, in recent months.

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 produced by Arrow Media, a special 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 1x60 minute doc presented by classic car fanatic Mark Evans, which airs on Thursday 28th May 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 twelve Lightweights were produced in 1963, but eighteen 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 twelve original 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 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 7000 hours to restore it, spending 5000 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, which aired on Thursday 16th April at 9pm on Quest. 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 Norman Dewis, a 94 year-old Jaguar legend, who helped develop some of the marque’s most celebrated race cars. He was seduced by one of the very first E-type’s, which has been restored by CMC in 2000. He made a pit stop at CMC’s headquarters from where he took for a spin a Coombs Mark 2, a modified version of the iconic model that was also restored by the company.

Nick 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.”

CMC’s new facilities, award winning restorations and special projects have also featured in British motoring TV series Fifth Gear with presenter Jonny Smith, a special programme on pensions on ITV News with Hagerty Insurance and BBC One’s Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is with Phil Serrel and Kate Bliss.

The Fifth Gear episode aired in early March and looked at the ultimate British getaway car of the 1960’s, the Jaguar Mark 2, and a brand new version of it. For this, Jonny Smith partnered with Jaguar’s Design Director Ian Callum for a staged bank robbery getaway and in their escape they switched from a standard Mark 2 to a “different” car, the Mark 2 by Callum.

The Mark 2 by Callum is an exciting joint project between Ian Callum and CMC, which saw them redesign and reengineer a Mark 2 for Ian’s personal use. With Ian's permission, CMC are producing a limited edition of just eleven more cars that are available for sale and have already attracted interest from around the world.

The ITV piece featured an interview with Marcus Atkinson of Hagerty Insurance discussing classic cars as an investment, especially at a time when a lot of people across the UK will get financial freedom with the new pension rule changes being introduced on April 6th.

The BBC One show featured presenters and old friends Phil Serrell and Kate Bliss venturing to an auction in Gloucestershire. A confessed petrol-head, Phil ended up buying two racing timers, which he then sold to the chairman of CMC.