Drive or cherish?
Two owners with different approaches to running a classic car
FOR most of us, a car collection is a far-off dream that is dependent upon a lottery win. For others, it is a day-to-day reality that’s made possible by having comfortable means and generous garage space. But with around 300 individual models on sale today and many thousands more produced during the last century, it’s fair to say no two collections will ever be the same.
Auto Express has persuaded two very different individuals to open their garage doors for a unique insight into the world of classic cars. Both collectors drive their cars regularly, but while one only buys cars he considers beautiful (before restoring them to concours condition), the other takes a more hands-on, pragmatic approach.
Robert Lewis’ 70-strong collection stretches back over the past 100 years, and his motivation for choosing models is simple. “I buy cars as art,” he tells us. “I buy cars I fall in love with, that I can sit with and look at as I enjoy a glass of wine. I’m not interested in how fast it goes, and if it’s ugly, I won’t buy it.”
We have to pick our jaws up from the floor as we enter Robert’s main showroom. A Koenigsegg Agera R is flanked by a Caterham 620R and a Lamborghini Miura. Further back is a Ferrari 488 Spider, a gullwing Mercedes 300SL, an Oldsmobile 88 and a Lotus Cortina, plus too many others to list. This is just one of Robert’s five showrooms.
“I’m a bit over the top,” Robert admits. “I like everything to be absolutely perfect.” The reasons for this perfection are practical as much as aesthetic. “I was sick of being the best customer of the AA and the RAC,” he continues. “So I now take engines out, check them through, put them back in. Most of these cars have been totally stripped down.” This work is carried out by Robert’s two full-time mechanics in a purpose-built workshop.
With so many cars to his name, it amazes us Robert only started collecting 14 years ago. “I started buying viciously,” he says. “I saw the Bonhams sale in Monte Carlo in 2004, and fell in love with a black Mercedes 300 SE Cabriolet. We owned all these buildings and I thought ‘let’s start doing this’. The first couple of years, I kept falling in love with cars.”
To make sure they’re driven, Robert and his wife host friends at the weekend. “We put the keys in a hat,” he says. “The key you get is for the car you take to the pub.” Robert also hosts corporate events, raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity.
The cars are driven “at least twice every month” in the summer, except for his concours-winning Mercedes 300SL gullwing. “That’s done on a rolling road,” he says. “Mercedes tells me to ‘drive the bloody thing’, but you’d never get it back to that condition without restoring again.”
We ask if 70 cars is enough. “Probably,” he replies. Then Robert thinks again, before adding: “I’ve got a wish-list. My dream is to have a Talbot Largo Teardrop.”
“I buy cars as art. I buy cars I fall in love with, that I can sit with and look at as I enjoy a glass of wine. I’m not interested in how fast it goes” ROBERT LEWIS Car collector
OUR second collector, Tony Lees, is a passionate fan of vintage (pre-1931) cars, a keen racer and, together with his wife Jennifer, an active member of the Vintage Sports-car Club (VSCC). Arriving at their home just outside Leicester, we’re welcomed by Tony, Jennifer and their 19-year-old son, Henry. Tony takes us straight outside, where a veritable automotive timeline resides. In pride of place is a 1920 Vauxhall 30-98, while a Citroen DS and a Morgan Plus 8 also sit on the drive.
Hidden behind barn doors in what was originally a cowshed rests more metal: a 1930 Austin 7 Ulster, a 1921 GN racer, a 1948 Series 1 Morgan 4/4 and, perhaps most curiously, a 1913 Vauxhall with a 12-litre V8 Hispano-suiza aeroplane engine. The latter has its bonnet up, work clearly in progress.
As well as cars, these rooms are filled with spare parts and tools. In a cardboard box rests a damaged gear from the transmission of the ‘aero’ Vauxhall, its teeth scoured by the 12-litre engine’s raw power.
It’s not just Tony who is car mad: Jennifer is director of the VSCC, and two of their five children are confirmed petrolheads. But with so many cars to his name, even a family as big as Tony’s must struggle to drive them all regularly? “They’re actively used,” he explains.
“That’s partly why I let my kids use them. They put the engine back in the Austin, after I said I wouldn’t. So they fixed it up. It teaches you how things work, and how they don’t.” Henry confirms this, adding: “It was good practice for A-level physics, doing the lights and electrics, learning about resistance, how the sixvolt battery’s power could be lost in old wiring.”
While the Lees’ cars are well kept, they’re not in concours condition. As well as the stripped gear, his cars bear scrutineers’ stickers and stone chips from rallies and hill climbs, plus paint crackle and leather cracks and, in the case of the DS, the odd spot of rust.
Tony is more than happy with how his collection presents. “They’re old cars,” he explains. “If they looked brand new it would be a bit strange.”
He understands why people restore cars to a high level, but adds “as long as they’re not a ‘boiled sweet’, as some people put it”. Period correct details, he says, “depend on the car. If you have a 100-yearold race car, there’s no way that all of its parts can be origin original. Things break, you need to replace them. It’s a bit like Trigger’s broom in Only Fools and Horses”.
Hav Having spent an hour or so in the Lees’ company, it’s time for a drive. And as we climb aboard Tony’s Vauxh Vauxhall 30-98, we’re glad he’s at the wheel. With hand-ooperated brakes and an unconventional pedal arran arrangement (“the central throttle confuses the hell out of people!”), it takes some getting used to.
Ton Tony has no such issues and is more than happy to make repeated runs up and down the country roads aroun around his house, turning around in lay-bys as our photo photographer gets the perfect shots. Even from the passenger seat, it’s a mechanical experience: you can hear the gears turning, see the effort Tony exerts on the steering wheel and appreciate the different approach the hand-operated brakes take.
We originally set out to profile two classic car collectors: one who would drive their cars regularly, and one who would never dare take them on the road. But the people who treat their cars as museum queens tend to be reluctant to let outsiders in to inspect their portfolio. So while Tony and Robert take very different approaches to collecting, they share an unparalleled love of cars and motor racing.
They have something else in common, too: both collectors are more than generous in their willingness to open their garage doors, and share their passion for classic cars with other people.
“Things break and you need to replace them. It’s a bit like Trigger’s broom in Only Fools and Horses” TONY LEES Vintage car collector & driver