Classic Jaguar's restoration lands top award for Bridgnorth firm – again

Classic Motor Cars, based on the town's Stanmore Industrial Estate, completed the epic, painstaking restoration of the one-off Pininfarina bodied 1954 Jaguar XK 120 SE.

The project allowed the company to scoop the Restoration of the Year Award at the Octane Awards, a presitigious industry ceremony judged by industry experts and car-loving celebrities such as TV host Jay Leno and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.

The employee-owned Bridgnorth company also won the award in 2011 for the restoration of the Lindner-Nocker Lightweight, a legendary Jaguar that many thought to be beyond repair, and in doing so has become the only company to have won this award twice.

Managing director Nigel Woodward said: “CMC are tremendously grateful to the judging panel for their recognition of skill and craftsmanship of our team of specialists who created this restoration. We are also blown away to have won this award for the second time."

The motor features unique body work designed by the Italian design house Pininfarina, and was delivered to Max Hoffman, a New York-based importer of luxury European cars, in 1954.

CMC bought the model in 2015 from a German seller who had bought it in the USA in 1978, and staff spent a total of 6,725 hours to restore the model in one of the company's most challenging-ever restoration programmes.

They found the original XK body was the basis for the car, and that a previous owner had painted the exterior in Burgundy, covered the seats with tan leather and changed various other aspects.

Some original parts were impossible to find because of the unique shape, so the company remade items such as bumpers and chrome work by hand working from photographs. Technicians also had to scan the front and rear end of the car in order to make mock ups of the lights, as well as the rear window.