Restoring My Gte Coupe

[gary6303]

Who are the best guys to restore my gte coupe none sunroof, would like new chassis rails, new front floors, 5 linked rear volvo axle to be fitted, car is far from rusty infact its a good one, its a project the i started but will take a long time to finnish so am looking at someone to finnish it.

[andyc]

You could try speaking to Chris @ CRC Classics, Simon @ Suffolk County Mantas of the guys at Retro Power. They are all on here best search the projects section

Cheers

Andy

Edited November 15, 2011 by andyc

[Kenny400]

My Manta Coupe is in Retropower now - would highly recommend - PM me if you want to have a chat

www.retropower.co.uk

Kenny

[robah]

My Manta Coupe is in Retropower now - would highly recommend - PM me if you want to have a chat

www.retropower.co.uk

Kenny

I would say these aswell, top work from these guys and bespoke.

Also try http://www.wizbangfabrication.co.uk. (East Yorkshire). They did my car shell for me.

It depends on where you are in the country, and how far you will travel.

[gary6303]

I live in winchester in hampshire, very exspensive here for very little work and would like someone skilled in mantas to build my dream manta.

[Kenny400]

Gary

I live in Wokingham Berkshire and havent found distance to be of any real relevance - I manage to get into Retropower every now and again but communication from the guys there is excellent and they are only a phone call or email away

They post regular updates as to whats happening with your car so even if you cant get there you can still see what's going on . I used a local company to transport my car up there in the first place which worked out not much more than the petrol for 2 cars there and 1 car back!

[andyc]

I wouldn't say the front floors, chassis legs and volvo axel is little work. One thing to remember with any work like this is you will get what you pay for

For the right job you will need to travel, as Kenny has said distance isn't a problem what with emails etc, for expample i have a Monza & S1 Senator in at the moment that have come over from Germany.

Take your time,look at work that has been done by various companys and speak to people who have had work done, you only want to do the job once so do it right first time

Cheers

Andy

[opel2000]

I wouldn't say the front floors, chassis legs and volvo axel is little work. One thing to remember with any work like this is you will get what you pay for

For the right job you will need to travel, as Kenny has said distance isn't a problem what with emails etc, for expample i have a Monza & S1 Senator in at the moment that have come over from Germany.

Take your time,look at work that has been done by various companys and speak to people who have had work done, you only want to do the job once so do it right first time

Cheers

Andy

As per Andy. He is just so spot on in his post above.

Example.... When repairing one of the wheel arches on my Manta, to get correct needs the best part of a day, followed by approx 2 days filling and sanding to get the correct lines back after welding, followed by paint prep, sanding priming finishing rub down and priming then paint, not to mention the arch treatment inside and out, time and materials. If I were to do this for someone as a business I would be looking at a weeks labour (possibly more) and then add on material costs, wages, and general business overheads etc. and you can soon see just how much this can add up. And that would be for a simple arch repair......

The trick is to find someone that will do the work to a standard that will mean it will last, unlike a lot of crap work I've seen done on Manta's over the years, such as arches built from fibreglass and filler on quite a few occaisions, dreadful roof repairs, silicon and filler chassis and sill repairs (silicon used to look like a weld bead)

and i bet the people that had these repairs done paid the going rate at the time. In fact going back a few years i was in possession of a "Restored" Manta that had £8000 spent on it. After a couple of weeks I scrapped the car due to it being so bodged.

Also as the East mids area rep at the time I went over to examine the work being done on a members car at a so-called reputable garage (due to his concerns) It was nice to see they had replaced most of the rotten steel, in fact they had done exactly what i would have done on this car, except I would have replaced with steel rather than filler and Fibreglass, and I would have cut a great deal more rot out than they did.

Be careful who you use, listen to the recommendations on here I've seen Retopower's, Suffolk County Manta's and CRClassics work at first hand, i know them and their standards and they are all spot on. Robah is no fool and he has used Wizbang fabrications, so contact him to get more idea of how good they are, I would assume they would Very reputable knowing Robah's standards.

I'm not saying there is no-one cheaper that isn't as good as these people, but any reputable person will have pictoral records of the rebuilds due to having the pride in their work to show to prospective customers, so ask for such evidence of competency.