Email martyn.knowles@kelsey.co.uk Follow us on Facebook @ Car Mechanics Order back issues here: shop.kelsey.co.uk/single-issue/car-mechanics-magazine
► We have over the past 30 years bought cars to run as projects here at CM. It gives us the opportunity to showcase repairs to a particular make/model. Most of the time we buy a popular-selling model which ranges from seven-years-old to twenty. Usually, we run two projects at the same time to give variety – it could be that one car is a small runabout and the other a larger type or that one is diesel, and one is petrol. Of late, we have tried to incorporate a ‘modern classic’ into the mix – something from the noughties period that we feel could be sought-after in years to come.
Things panned out differently earlier this year when we couldn’t offer a project car in the February and March 2024 issues due to sponsorship commitments starting a tad later in the year. I did, though, have available to me, a project car that was already running elsewhere in the publisher’s portfolio – the Bentley Continental Flying Spur, which we started as a stop-gap project in the March 2024 issue. Not your everyday motor, but interesting all the same being that they are assembled in Crewe. I’m hoping to borrow the Bentley W12 soon but not looking forward to its thirst for petrol. The Bentley Flying Spur project will run over four parts (March, April, May and June issues).
As you will see, from this issue we introduce to you a new project – a 2007
BMW 335i, starting on page 28 and sponsored by Machine Mart. I wasn’t involved in buying this BMW – the publishers sent an employee (James) living close to the car we spotted on eBay in Scotland. James judged it OK, so after completing the transaction, he drove the 335i down to the NEC in Birmingham mid-November, while I travelled up on the train, to one, collect the BMW, and two, take in the atmosphere of the Classic Motor Show taking place that weekend.
My road trip back was completed in the dark. From Scotland to the south coast of England (via Birmingham), all went well.
Once the Bentley finishes in the June issue, we then start another new project in July – a Volkswagen Transporter sponsored by the bilstein group.
Transporters are expensive. Ideally, we would be buying a high-mileage T5 panel van. However, Ian Cushway, Editor at VWt magazine (catering for VW Transporters from T4 onwards) is keen for me to buy a Transporter that he could then take on after the CM treatment.
After a
