An alternative day out for the motoring enthusiast

I’d love to spend longer with Mike and Jane but we’ve got more people to see. Next stop is only about 10 minutes away, an outfit called Moto Technique, hidden away on a light industrial estate in East Molesley.

I’ve been a regular visitor at this place for more than 30 years and have been mates with founder Kevin O’Rourke for the same length of time. He and his team have restored some incredible machines over the years. I’ve seen at least two 250 GTOs having ground-up restorations, along with dozens of other Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and pretty much any exotic you care to mention being brought back from the dead to be concours winners. O’Rourke has shifted with the times. Restoration has always been the core business but a few years ago Moto Technique did a lot of insurance work. I remember a crumpled F40, and a 288 GTO before that.

O’Rourke’s current passion is resto mods. Lined up in the squeaky-clean workshop are three Ferrari 308 GTBs, each undergoing tasteful upgrading. The green one has strengthened wishbones, 360 Modena brakes and a Moto Technique-manufactured carbonfibre engine lid that saves an enormous amount of weight.

Off in the even cleaner engine shop a thorough reworking of the cars’ 3.0-litre V8s is taking place. They’re bored and stroked and fitted with throttle body injection and a full engine management system. I’ve driven a 246 GT that O’Rourke had given the engine management treatment to and it was transformed. His own Dino is fitted with an F355 engine and is a work of art. These 308s are going to give their owners a lot of pleasure.

If I have an interesting car to test (and it’s sadly rare these days – see dull crossovers and SUVs) then I head down into Sussex to Goodwood for a sarnie and the hope of seeing something interesting circulating the track – which is what Luc Lacey and I decide to do today.

The Camaro most definitely fits into the ‘interesting’ category. It’s a wonderful car to drive slowly. I much prefer Chevrolet’s pushrod V8 to Ford’s 5.0-litre overhead-cammer in the Ford Mustang. Kevin Hurl at Ian Allan will sell you one of these gems for only a few quid over £40,000. When he’s run out of his stock of coupés and convertibles it’s unlikely that any new Camaros will come to our shores. It’s not even certain that Chevrolet will continue to build its iconic pony car for much longer.

We’re in luck. There seems to be some sort of manufacturer-customer day in progress at Goodwood. McLaren is here with a few McLaren 720Ss, Aston Martin has a Aston Martin Vantage wearing the company’s famous AML 1 number plate, Ferrari has a 812 Superfast and there’s a Singer here too. Aside from the Singer 911 I’d rather have the Camaro than any of these exotics.

More luck, Derek Bell is here. Bell is a constant presence in our world, popping up like Zelig at car launches and various events. If you’ve had the pleasure you’ll know what a warm-hearted bloke he is. “You’ll never believe it,” he exclaims, “I’ve just spun that BMW M4 at Madgwick.” If I’d come out with this sentence the world would have replied, ‘and so?’, but D. Bell losing it is unusual. “It’s modern steering: no feel for what the car is doing.” Quite.

We must crack on as we want to be at our next stop for afternoon tea. We’ve got to negotiate the A27 east of Brighton and then head north to the village of Buxted in East Sussex, home of Crosthwaite & Gardiner. Put simply, this outfit is one of the finest automotive engineering companies in the world. A bold statement, but given that Mercedes-Benz and Audi trusted the company to build replicas of their Silver Arrows racing cars, the claim is somewhat justified.

Dick Crosthwaite, who set the company up in 1969 with the late John Gardiner, is now semi-retired and his son Ollie runs the business day to day. There is much going on at C&W that we’re unable to photograph or talk about, but that doesn’t overly restrict us as there’s plenty to gawp at and ogle. The machine shop is fascinating, with cutting-edge computer-controlled tools producing parts to ridiculously tight tolerances.

A trip around the stores is worth another couple of hours of our time. Beautifully turned nuts (with integral washers) for Bugattis, brand-new D-Type cylinder heads. Talking of which, C&W will supply a brand-new E or D-Type racing engine ready to go. Or a 2.5-litre Coventry Climax engine for a Cooper or Lotus F1 car. Then there’s the room where hundreds of patterns are kept. The last time I felt this in awe of history I was standing in the Museum of Cairo.

Dick Crosthwaite might be retired but he can’t keep away. He was pottering about the place when I last visited and he’s here today. He’s full of stories, as is Ollie. I could stay for hours but Lacey and I have to hit the road again.