Spent much of Friday in a very rural corner of Oxfordshire in what used to a watermill and associated buildings. Today it’s the rather ramshackle home to the kind of automotive project that only the British can do properly – vintage restoration. The chaps at Fiennes will take the rusty wreck of a pre-WW2 Rolls-Royce or Bentley and turn it back into a thing of beauty. Needless to say, this is not a job that can be rushed. I don’t like putting my car into the garage and not getting it back the same day. At Fiennes it’s not even a case of you heading off on holiday and picking it up when you get back. People have emigrated for shorter times than it takes their skilled engineers! Two years is the average time for a full restoration, though company owner Will Fiennes told me last summer they finished a car that the customer dropped off 12 years ago!! Think he’d had some financial problems part way through, which is why it had taken so long. Testament to the quality of Fiennes’ work, the car had gone straight to a Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club event at Rockingham Castle in Northants and won its class.
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