Best Garage For Classic cars? Your opinion

[VanquishDubai]

Hello all.

I wanted to ask your thoughts on who YOU think, based on your own experiences, are the best garages which currently work on classic cars. (60's through to 90's)I am talking mechanical expertise here, not painting. I have listed some of the popular choices, but would like to get your own thoughts if you have a moments, so feel free to recommend additional ones. Thanks.

If you can add a "Quality of Expertise/Workmanship and of course Cost Effectiveness" score from 1- 10 then it would be great.

European Classics: (Porsche 911, BMW, Audi)
Autohaus ?
Alex Renner Motors ?
Saluki Motorsports ?
Max Garage ?

American Classics: (The usual For Mustangs, Camaro, Corvettes etc)
Max Garage ?

[yorky500]

I have seen a fair few old skool American muscle cars in Robbie's Motorsports before. I had no issues with the work they did on my 07 Silverado, but it is not a classic.

[shirt]

VanquishDubai said:

European Classics: (Porsche 911, BMW, Audi)

speak to desertevo on gulfpetrolheads. he has restored an integrale and fiat coupe recently, had a g series 911, just bought a z3m coupe, plus others. uses deutsch auto now i believe but could give you a rundown of the main players.

[IanUAE]

Performance House have a few classics that they have worked on.

[Paracetamol]

I use Max Garage for my e type and 280sl pagoda.

Expensive but generally good

[VanquishDubai]

Thanks Lads, Keep em coming.

[shirt]

Paracetamol said:

I use Max Garage for my e type and 280sl pagoda.

Expensive but generally good

I would expect consistently good or excellent to go along with expensive.

AAA have also restored cars but for the marques you mention most of these recommendations are what you need.

Who did harris use to rebuild his integrale suspension?

[Harris_I]

Barbz Sheikh at Das Autohaus is probably the best integrale specialist in the Middle East. In fact I'm waiting for him to come back to the UK for a holiday so he can do some work on my car! (If you see him, please tell him this ) Given that he's now at a BMW specialist, I would imagine he might be pretty handy on an E30 M3.

Barbz looked after mine until he left the UAE (first time) and then Saluki and Max took over. Both were good - I like the no frills approach, and the fact you can wander around and have a chat. I tended to use Max for things like refurbs. With Max, you may need to look over their shoulder a bit as there's the usual Dubai language barrier to overcome. It always helps to speak Urdu/Hindi!

[Harris_I]

On the subject of Porsches, ARM are the obvious choice. I would never use an OPC. Paul at the new A2B is a Porsche man, and you also have House of Cars who did the rebuild on my GT3. But that was when David Tyrrell was there (proper old school engineer) and he's moved on now (not sure where).

[VanquishDubai]

When you lot say Integrale are you meaning Lancia Integrale?

I was going to bring my Lancia Integrale Evo 2 over here, but I dont believe there is anyone here who can do it properly. Thoughts? Lancia's can be tricky little buggers.

[dxbtiger]

Yes, Harris had one here.

[shirt]

just occurred to me that phil from crank&piston had a glorious resto done on his 912 locally and should know who the top garages are through his day job.

i should also add that robi at MSW is a brilliant mechanic with fanatical eye for detail:-

http://www.crankandpiston.com/on-the-track/msw-dub...
http://www.crankandpiston.com/on-the-road/bmw-e30-...

[Harris_I]

Personally, Luke, I would leave the 'grale in the UK. Not really suited for Dubai - roads are big, wide and power friendly. The Lancia is suited to narrow country lanes with a layer of mulchy leaves and unpredictable camber changes. The environment seems to make it come alive in a way it never did in Dubai.

Sure, the Lancia is highly tunable but the idea of 300bhp in a stressed little Italian car in 45C is worrying. Mine was mildly tweaked, but I had a hot starting issue in summer and the coolant header once overflowed into the passenger footwell. The interior trim warps in the heat (though Max Garage found a very creative solution to this.) I tended to restrict it to the winter months only and started becoming increasingly precious about it.

If you must bring it to Dubai, Barbz is still around, so you will have a guy every bit as good as Keith at AI or John Whalley to look after it.

[dictys]

Harris_I said:

On the subject of Porsches, ARM are the obvious choice.

I would never take any of my cars to ARM and I would advise that there are many classic Owners in Dubai who will support this view.

[Harris_I]

Oh dear. Alex used to look after my GT3 back in the day - not that one might consider that a classic. I suppose there are always good and bad experiences.

[shirt]

barbz is still, or is back, at deutsch auto. spoke to him and his colleague heiki at the autodrome this afternoon. they'd prepped jonathan's car, having taken over from lap57, and he won both races. i had a quick chat re: tuning and ECU's and will be taking my car there once ready to do so.

Edited by shirt on Friday 24th January 19:03

[Paracetamol]

There is a common thread to the likes of ARM and Max etc. They have great and knowlegeable owners but things start to fall apart when they cannot watch constantly over their staff...it usually results in having to go back a few times. It all gets sorted but you have to remain polite and patient.