THE ONE-STOP

Sam Bailey has turned his passion for Mercedes’ classic sports car into a lucrative business Not only does he keep them on the road, but bespoke upgrades also give them a new lease of life about developing the skills to keep classics on the road as they do about the cars themselves “Some older competitors are shutting up shop, which means [the industry is] losing the necessary expertise, so we’re bringing a lot of new skills in-house,” Sam says. “It ensures we can keep cars on the road, especially as Mercedes blows hot and cold with its classic-car provision ” While components such as brakes, steering components and distributors are readily available, Sam is now having bumpers, panels, chrome trim, relays and fuel systems produced to his own exacting standards We’re shown through the workshops, each tasked with dealing with different eras of SL The first is home to dozens of cars from the seventies, eighties and nineties, including one that previously belonged to the Sultan of Brunei, curiously painted in a BMW purple The next workshop deals with bodywork; it’s currently home to an R107 which is “as bad as it gets”, according to one technician. It’s undergoing hundreds of hours of restoration way in excess of its financial value, because it has huge emotional attachment to its owner A few feet away, Rob, another technician, is fabricating a new top for an R107’s bulkhead. Serious corrosion here is a known weak point, but with a new panel costing £5,000 from Mercedes, SLShop is fabricating its own parts to keep the costs down and the workmanship up. Indeed, each car with a fresh bulkhead carries SLShop certification, allowing potential owners to guarantee that the 50-100 hours of work has been carried out Standards have to be high, not just because of the values of some of the cars SLShop restores and sells, but because buyers want their cars to fundamentally function correctly As Bruce Greetham, the firm’s sales director and start hot cold.

Project

Bailey is planning to respond to customer demand by offering performance upgrades for Pagoda (below) self-confessed Pagoda obsessive puts it: “A car has to start on the key when hot and when cold; it’s got to change gear properly You need the confidence that you could do a whole season with the car ”

That might sound obvious, but in a world where highend classics are traded like art or fine wine, many are destined to spend their days in air-conditioned garages Francis Robertson-Marriott is tasked with acquiring new customers – and keeping them – and agrees: “Classics are an escape from the pessimism of modern motoring We enable people to drive and enjoy their

STAGES SLShop caters for everything from servicing to ground-up restorations

cars and feel confident in a well maintained car. In a modern car, you can’t create the same memories”

It’s that vision that’s led to SLShop’s latest project, a membership scheme that allows access to myriad tours, events and cars-and-coffee type meets, among other benefits The concept is simple: treat customers like friends and family, and they’ll come back for servicing, repair and –just maybe – a replacement when the time comes The wins aren’t just for the customer, either. With more than 20,000 clients around the world, that’s a lot of potential parts to supply, cars to maintain and enthusiasts to talk to