Car SOS presenter Fuzz Townshend’s classic car workload appropriately reflects the market’s fast rhythm, with UK auction sales to date already overtaking the 2012 sales overall.*
The presenter is appearing for live chats at the Manchester Classic Car Show, the fastest growing classic car event, this weekend, (20/21 September); the National Restoration Show in Stoneleigh (26 October) and NEC Classic Motor Show, 14/16 November.
Alongside those appointments, Fuzz also finds the time to scour the UK seeking worthy candidates for the Car SOS treatment, and sift through hundreds of nominations suggested by equally-enthusiastic classic car fans through the presenter’s Facebook and Twitter pages (www.facebook.com/fuzz.townshend, www.facebook.com/westgateclassics and @fuzztownshend).
Finding, choosing, restoring, and finally assessing the chosen vehicles remains confidential matter until the episodes are screened; Italian, German and British marques all feature in the programme, now in its third series. “I am quite lucky that my workshop, Westgate Classics, is where we rescue these vehicles,” says Fuzz. “However, the pressure to restore them to the best standards afforded is not to be underestimated.” Among the September classics featured in the current series, a Porsche 911 suffering from terminal rust, a Triumph Herald and a Morris Traveller.
Separately from Car SOS requirements, Westgate Classics carries out full restoration work on a wide range of classics, from the very British Land Rovers and Triumphs through to an early Scirocco.
Fuzz does not just talk about classic cars: his was the opening speech at the Arts Council England’s ‘Black Country Echoes’ festival (www.blackcountryechoes.org.uk) last week. The festival is close to his heart, as a musician as well as a presenter, “having spent much of my working life in the industrial Black Country and having played in some of the biggest bands to emerge from there from the ‘80s to the 2000s,” he points out.
Fuzz Townshend’s regular musings can be read in Classic Car Weekly, one of the UK’s most popular specialist publications.
Visit www.channel4.com/programmes/car-sos and natgeotv.com/uk/car-sos/about for details of Fuzz’s Car SOS series, or www.classicfriendly.co.uk to learn more about Fuzz’s latest venture, a network of garages who give classic cars the once-over in the post-‘no MOT’ era.
* UK auction sales, to 18 September 2014: over £126m. Total 2012 auction sales: £110.5m. Last year, the total of £126m was reached in November. Stats and information provided by ‘The Brain’, marketing analyst Cliff Goodall, AV PR (www.angievoluti.com/about-us/the-team).
