Classic Car Weekly (UK)

Prepare to rally!

( but RPS would rather you didn’t do it in a Bentley)

- SIMON AYRIS, RALLY PREPARATIO­N SERVICES, OXON When was RPS founded? Do you solely sell modified cars, or standard ones as well? What services other than buying and selling do you offer when someone comes to you for a car? Which pre-war American rally cars

July 2007 officially, although it started gently before, while I had a proper job. We now offer full rally and endurance car preparatio­n, alongside classic and vintage car restoratio­n services and car sales. We’re particular­ly well known for pre-war American rally cars – what we call our ‘Fangio Coupés’. Everything: standard, modified, classic, vintage – even moderns. A careful, thoughtful approach is everything, and the RPS crew have seen it and done it all over the years, as we’ve competed in and supported over 40 internatio­nal events across the globe. But most of all, it’s about deciding what you want to rally. As well as total builds, we offer full restoratio­n services, event tracking solutions and mechanical support – our mechanics work on a number of events such as the Monte Carlo Historique, the Peking to Paris Rally and the forthcomin­g Samurai Challenge in Japan. Chevrolet always first as they have given us our best results – Juan Manuel Fangio too! Simple, straightfo­rward engineerin­g with a lot of what we look for already built within. Those that stand out are always Alvis and Bentley, both having sound engineerin­g and being suitably strong, so long as your pockets are just as strong. Pre-war American cars don’t work for everyone, but they’re durable – and cheaper than a Bentley or Alvis. Bentleys are beautiful, but given the worth of these cars, it breaks my heart when people want to drive them across the desert at speed and destroy them. After all, they were never meant to do this stuff. Our ‘Fangio Coupés’ are called that for a reason: Juan Manuel Fangio used to compete in these cars on unforgivin­g dirt roads.

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