RESTO HERO
Nick Favell can turn his hand to any challenge including the family Magnum Sportshatch…
1974 VAUXHALL MAGNUM
Having passed through various family members, the cherished Vauxhall will never be sold.
Asked about his first interest in the world of cars, Nick Favell fondly recalls his earliest childhood memory of sitting in the back of a stately Jaguar MkVII, driven by his father not long after Favell senior had passed his driving test back in the Sixties. ‘I can remember the unusual opposing wiper arrangement on the MkVII’s split windscreen, and being told off for sticking my arm out through the rear door quarterlights!,’ he laughs.
Jumping forward two decades to the early Eighties, Nick found a part-time job as a forecourt attendant at a local Leicestershire Jet service station, where the owner quickly recognised young Nick’s drive and determination, giving him an opportunity on the spanners. ‘I was able to combine my workshop job with part time technical college study, gaining a City & Guilds motor vehicle qualification.’
After a few years, he became an AA patrolman, and then became his own boss. ‘I set up ‘Mr Clutch’, a specialist clutch fitting service based in a workshop in Leicester.’ This grew successfully for several years before Nick chose to move on again, working in garages including a Vauxhall main dealership, then in 2000 he set up alone as a mobile mechanic operating in the local area. This nomadic existence continued until 2004, when he decided to buy the proper bricks and mortar premises he occupies to this day in the Leicestershire village of Countesthorpe.
Spreading the word
Clearly Nick has long had a personal interest in classic cars: ‘Local enthusiast John Bowyer had been bringing his Zodiac Executive in for an MOT every year when I took over here and he continued to come here with it. Then, when John wanted a sympathetic workshop to restore his Zephyr, he brought that to me as well. After a number of other jobs, word spread that we were interested in looking after classic cars here at Favell’s Garage’.
Pride of place in Nick’s collection goes to his very original and well-presented Vauxhall Magnum Sportshatch, which has been owned by his family since it was built in 1974. Nicknamed ‘Maggie the Magnum’ it’s well known in Vauxhall club circles, as it’s rare to find a seventies Magnum surviving in such fine condition.
First owned by Nick’s sister’s late father-in-law, remarkably this car has been in the family since new. Finished in rare Olivine Green Metallic, it passed to Nick’s brother-in-law in the mid-Nineties, by which time typical old car
