The marketplace
Suffolk-based restoration specialist Bridge Classic Cars is bringing new meaning to the term budget classic. The firm has ‘sold’ 36 cars since May 2020, to buyers who have parted with potentially less than £10 – or whatever the price of the raffle ticket is that month.
The £900,000-worth of variety that Bridge Classic Cars has given away for pocket money is vast, from MGB to Mercedes-benz SL55 AMG to Ford Sierra Sapphire. The concept is simple: a set number of tickets is available during an allotted period of time, and the winner is revealed on a live Facebook stream.
“People thought we’d done it because of lockdown,” explains director Craig Ranson. “But I and Freddie, one of my marketing team, had been planning it for some time, learning what you had to do to stick to the gambling licences and laws. I didn’t know about furlough at the time and I have 22 members of staff. I thought, ‘I need to do something about it.’ We launched probably a month earlier than we were originally expecting to.”
The first also raised £2000 for the NHS and one event a month was the target, but it has so far averaged three. The cars aren’t restored in-house, where possible, but meet the firm’s standards: “They need to be the best of what they are because of who we are as a company.”
There was some kickback early on, with people either thinking it was too good to be true or roughly doing the sums of ticket price and car value, but the process of each car isn’t as straightforward as it appears. One obstacle was the real money gambling licence, which was costly and time-consuming.
“Each draw costs £5-6000 in advertising and the bank fees, because only certain banks will accept gambling as a form of payment,” says Ranson. “We stick to the rules. You just have to look at it and say: ‘Well how much does this car owe me? Add this, this and this and then hopefully make a profit.’ We do on some, we don’t on others.
“We came up against scepticism, with people saying it wasn’t real, the photos and video were too nice.”
The benefits outweigh any losses, though, and Bridge Classic Cars now reaches more than a million people each month online. And the servicing and restoration work follows. “The nice thing about the people that seem to win the cars is that they’re enthusiasts,” he says. “They’re part of clubs or owners’ groups already, and when they go to places and say ‘this car was won’ that generates more interest.”
There is no end in sight to the contests, and Ranson has big plans: “We want it to grow. It’s a shame with lockdown because we wanted to create a magazine-style show. Our first video was just me, the presenter Charlotte and Freddie filming on an iphone, and now it’s a seven-strong team with four cameras, visual mixers and editors. We’d like an audience here and to open our doors. We have lots of ideas, and exciting things coming.”