Unit 7, Isleworth Business Complex, St John's Road, Isleworth, Middlesex, TW7 6NL. Telephone 0208 758 2322   Int. +44 208 758 2322     Fax 0208 560 2232   Int. +44 208 560 2232

                    

I'm suprised Nigel Sandells ever managed to mend anybody's car, because he seems to spend all his time washing his hands. As he stoops for the umpteenth time over the small workshop sink, he says, "I wash them at least ten times a day". Every week the catering-sized tub of hand cleanser needs replacing.

He is a very tidy man and encourages the same trait in his two assistants and two trainees. Tools are neat and tidy, cars are clean and shiny; I even witness the floor being polished. And there always seems to be one bloke at the sink pumping the plunger on the soap dispenser. I've been in quite a few small garages in my time, but this is the first one that smells of lemons.

In one corner of the workshop is Nigels office. The shelves are neatly stuffed with books on Rollers and Bentleys. There are models of cars, car badges, pictures of cars, a painting of his own concours-winning 1979 Shadow and a representation of a Phantom II made from old clock parts. Upon entering, one is invited to wipe one's feet on a Rolls Royce / Bentley doormat. Being a Rolls Royce and Bentley man at heart is essential to understanding the culture of the business he is in. "I love'em" he confirms. But he's no snob. He once mended a Ferrari. Like most independent specialists, Nigel began his spannering career as an apprentice at a Rolls Royce dealership. Five years later he was snapped up by another big dealership and worked there for six years until something obviously pissed him off very deeply. "The trouble with big dealerships is they don't know how to treat their staff," he says cautiously.

It transpires that our man completed a £60,000 restoration job on a car belonging to Elton John, and with which the popstar was well pleased, but was given only a £100 bonus and instructions not to complain or "we'll take it away again." So he packed up his Snap-Ons and that was that

He then worked "very happily" as a self employed contractor to Royce Service and Engineering and regularly travelled the world to tend people's cars until he realised he could go it alone and, in '98, sank all his cash into the industrial unit he now occupies.

It's not very big. There's just room for four cars, three up in the air and one on the ground. As our Turbo R is elevated, its rear wheelarch clears the wall of the office by only a few inches; if you left the office at the wrong moment, you could lose a few teeth on the rear bumper. The bays are full and there are more R-Rs outside. This is a good sign, like finding an Indian restaurant frequented by Indians.

Nigel caters for real toffs - he has a nearly new Arnage on his books - but also appreciates that many old-car owners are strapped for cash or are, as in the case of Top Gear, skinflints. His golden rule is: spend a little, and often. "Treat the car as a project," he says."Make a list, and tick something off every year." Given a car like ours, he will list everything that ought to be done in order of priority, from the essential (the rear spring cups) to the merely desirable (hardend bushes).Nigel is, as I said, a meticulous man, which reminds me of a famous saying of Henry Royce himself: "Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble." with an ageing Turbo R, it is tempting to think that whatever is rightly done, however humble, will cost a bleeding fortune. But it needn't.

His 'to do' list was long but not far from our budget - untill he discovered that the exhaust blow demanded a new pipe section at £479.61, that is. Parts can be a below-the-belt blow. Still, at £35 an hour, the personal attention of Mr Sandell works out at less than half the price charged by some main dealers. And with this bloke, there's absolutely no risk of finding an oily thumbprint on the upholstery.

      
  

July 18, 2004 Sunday Times Magazine
Old Rollers never die, they just turn into RR-unabouts For the price of a family hatch you can have a luxury car of a certain age that is every bit as practical, finds Andrew Frankel of The Sunday Times

Order a new Rolls-Royce today and the invoice will arrive bearing the figure £214,500 — even before you’ve chosen any optional extras. Ask those who drive Rolls-Royces why they are worth it and they all say the same things: it’s the leather, the wood, the badge, the mascot . . . that inimitable sense of occasion that only a Roller can provide. And yet all of that can be yours for the price of a Ford Focus.

Quite simply, the higher cars are priced, the harder they fall. According to Parker’s car price guide, within three years your brand new Rolls-Royce Phantom will be worth just £110,000 (an punishing depreciation cost of £735 a week).

It doesn’t matter whether you measure value by quantity or quality, there’s no escaping the fact that old Rolls-Royces are dirt cheap: if you’re brave, you can buy something wearing the Spirit of Ecstasy for as little as £6,000. While that’s not something we’d necessarily recommend, if you’re prepared to double your budget to £12,000 and shop with care, a beautiful and reliable Rolls-Royce can be yours for the price of a low-spec Focus.

Rollers need looking after but their maintenance costs should be no greater than the depreciation of a new tin box bought for the same money, and in the meantime you get a Rolls to drive around in. And even today an old one offers an experience unlike any other car. If the suspension is working properly, the ride quality remains magical, while all you hear for most of the time is the distant rumble of a mighty 6.75 litre V8 engine.

Most of the automatic gearboxes have only three speeds, but with all that torque you don’t need any more anyway. The doors feel heavy enough to be made of granite, and you only have to see the thickness of the front seats to imagine the comfort they offer.

The other great thing about an old Rolls is that it has been built to last. Its engine is about as stressed as a holidaying Jamaican, so it will run for a quarter of a million miles before serious work — in the form of a £10,000 rebuild — is needed. One with 100,000 miles on the clock is considered nicely run-in, and you should always opt for a pampered high-mileage car over one that’s been sitting unused for years. The whole car is hugely over-engineered, and increasingly people are starting to realise it.

These cars are no longer driven exclusively by retired colonels with handlebar moustaches, as they now attract a much younger audience who use them as everyday cars rather than as recreational weekend vehicles.

They are even becoming quite cool. If the Top Gear presenter James May has a long journey to do he’ll take his 1980 Bentley T2 (a rebadged Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, though much scarcer and only slightly more expensive at around £15,000), and he’s not alone.

Five years ago a 29-year-old sculptor named Matt Wild realised his ambition to own a Rolls before he was 30. He bought a 1982 Silver Spirit with 70,000 miles on the clock for £12,000. Now the mileometer figure is 177,000, and the car is as strong as ever.

“It’s my only vehicle, it lives in the street in Notting Hill, it goes everywhere with me and it’s the most reliable car I’ve ever had,” he says. “It has never let me down. It carries all my work and I often have 15 bags of plaster or cement in the boot.”

Matt has taken the car to Spain twice and when he got married he took his bride to the south of France in it with a tent in the back. He’s even slept in the car.

“It has its own personality and you can’t help but have some of it rub onto you. I used to drive fast sports cars and get terribly frustrated in traffic, but now I’m not bothered at all — I just turn on Classic FM, sit back in that large leather seat and let the journey take its time. It’s the ultimate antidote to road rage.”

It is a car Wild plans to keep for ever. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s serviced every 6,000 miles at a cost of around £300-£400. The only thing I would say — and it’s probably the most important thing of all — is that if you don’t have someone who knows how to look after it properly, owning one is a waste of money.”

Wild’s car is cared for by the west London specialist Nigel Sandell (www.nsandell.com, 020 8758 2322) and he is almost evangelical on the subject. “You really should think very hard before buying a surprisingly cheap Rolls, and ask yourself why it costs so little. If they’re properly maintained they’re great cars, but if they’ve been neglected they can be a nightmare. You can spend £7,000 on a Shadow and then spend more than that again getting it right, at which stage you might as well have saved yourself the heartache and bought a proper car.”

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Rolls-Royces are made with such high quality materials that they hide abuse well. Interiors don’t look worn at 150,000 miles, so it’s simple for the unscrupulous to wind 100,000 miles off the clock without arousing suspicion. Sandell advises that “proper” cars cost around £15,000, although this varies considerably according to colour. “Rolls-Royce did some really terrible colours in the 1970s and if you don ’t care about that there are real bargains to be had.” He cites the case of a brown Silver Shadow II sold for £12,500: “If that car had been silver it would have gone for £18,000.”

Those looking for a sub-£20,000 Rolls will almost certainly be looking at one of two models. The Silver Shadow was made from 1965 to 1981 and updated in 1977 as the Silver Shadow II. In 1980 the Silver Spirit was introduced, and had minor updates to become the Spirit II in 1990, III in 1994 and Spirit (96) in 1996. There are long-wheelbase versions of the Shadow (originally called the Shadow LWB, then from 1977 the Silver Wraith II), and of the Spirit, which is called the Silver Spur.

Long wheelbase models are slightly rarer but shouldn’t cost much more, and offer significantly better legroom — the standard cars are comfortable for four adults but not as airy in the back as you might imagine.

Newer isn’t necessarily better. Sandell says that Silver Spirits are less well built than Silver Shadows and rust more rapidly. Early Spirits can also be “a bit of a nightmare” as their bugs weren’t ironed out until around 1985.

If you fancy a bit of pace to go with the Rolls-Royce grace, look at the 140mph Bentley Mulsanne Turbo made between 1982 and 1999. But watch out for high-mileage early cars: the extra power puts more strain on all areas of the car, so these models wear out sooner than Spirits and Shadows. You’ll pay more up front and more again for maintenance.

Remember that fuel economy is not a strong point: expect to average 13-18mpg. The key to finding the right car is research. Your first port of call is the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club (01327 811 788, www.rrec.co.uk) whose experts will advise you of the possible pitfalls and point you to reputable specialists. You should be suspicious of cars that don’t sit properly on the road, as they might need their hydraulic self-levelling rear suspension rebuilt at a cost of thousands.

You can, however, just strike it lucky. Simon Bailey is a waste-paper merchant who had never entertained a single thought of owning a Rolls-Royce. “I used to drive a Mercedes E-class, then a friend said he was getting rid of his 1975 Shadow and asked if I wanted it. It was a complete surprise but I preferred the older Rollers to the newer ones and as it was getting near to my 50th birthday the time felt right. He only wanted £6,000 for it.”

That kind of money usually only buys a Shadow in need of an overhaul, but in four years and 41,000 miles it has let him down only once, with a faulty starter motor.

Buying a Rolls as a substitute for a Mercedes is one thing, using one instead of a scooter is something else again. Steven Lovegrove is a property manager at the Wellington Museum in central London, in a building more commonly known by its apparently erroneous address, Number 1, London. He had happily scooted to Hyde Park from Richmond every day until one day he emerged from work to find an empty space where his scooter had been parked. This meant his beloved “weekend” Roller was pressed into service as a daily commuting car.

Lovegrove, 49, had wanted a Rolls since he was a child. “I remember looking at a Rolls advert when I was at school and I just loved the idea of it being the Best Car in the World.” He finally found the right car, a 1976 Shadow, five years ago and paid £14,000 for it. “I searched for it for about a year, found any number in truly horrible colours before I got mine, which is a lovely sage green.” Like our other owners, he has nothing but praise for this car, which is his only transport.

“I know I should get another scooter,” he says, “but I just keep delaying it.” Under the circumstances, it’s easy to understand why.

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