The specialist: I Say, Ding Dong!

By Simon Hucknall

| 11 Feb 2026

Classic & Sports Car – The specialist: I Say, Ding Dong!

Tony Collins, the founder of I Say, Ding Dong!, concedes that his business has “a silly name”.

You probably would not immediately associate the moniker with a company that produces around 15,000 different lines of stickers for classic vehicles, sending orders to “every inhabited continent, every day” from inside a converted residential garage close to Solihull.

Tony started I Say, Ding Dong! in 2003 – the phrase originates from Leslie Phillips’ Dr Bell character in the 1959 film Carry On Nurse and was a favourite of motorsport types in period.

He had sold his point-of-sale merchandising company a few years earlier, and was on the verge of taking on a classic racing series from Julius Thurgood when a friend asked how he could source period sponsor stickers for a Ford Cortina racing car at which point Tony spotted a business opportunity.

The alphabetised storage reveals the scope of this company’s back catalogue

“I envisaged it being a one-day-a-week concern, producing around 10 stickers a day,” he explains. “But by the end of the first week it literally took off.”

It is now very much a family business, employing five people including Tony’s wife, Sue, as well as his daughter, Pru, and son, Ren.

The output is hugely diverse but centred on classic motoring, with stickers for Scalextric models, pedal cars, petrol pumps, planes and yachts in the mix.

Copyright, Tony concedes, is a constant problem, and while he has never been taken to court, solicitors rather than the brands they claim to represent tend to be the ones who are stoking the fire.

From left to right: Tony Collins with his wife Sue and son Ren, who have been recruited as this family-run business has expanded

What started as a garage-run business appears to have taken over much of the Collins’ family home, which now comprises a rabbit warren of well-ordered sections of the business.

Once an order is received, Tony creates the artwork for the job on a computer, if it is a design that hasn’t been requested before.

He is proud of the company’s ability to cater for small volumes or even one-off requests for stickers, but there is a premium to pay in such cases. Either way, selling stickers in their thousands has always been avoided.

Much of the time a template will exist, and after 23 years the business has a huge archive filed alphabetically around the edges of the main print room.

Tony creates artwork on his computer for new designs

Once the artwork is complete, the job is sent to Ren to load on to a Roland digital printer “the Rolls-Royce of printers,” Tony enthuses.

The stickers are then hung out to dry and finally sent to a laser cutter before being dispatched.

To date, the company has serviced requests from more than 100 countries.

Tony refers to the stickers as “automotive jewellery”, but points out that his customers’ tastes are conservative.

Reproduction stickers can be made for classic car rallies and other events

“I’ve learnt not to try to educate people [about designs],” he admits.

“You can’t move things forward too much – if you produce something too funky, people don’t want to know.”

So it is no surprise that Union Jack stickers and those for the UK’s home nations are the biggest sellers, with ‘seconds’ packs of random designs also popular.

Highly popular switch control legend stickers are available for a broad range of classic cars

The types of stickers vary greatly, depending on the application, from window stickers and lick-and-stick products to sticky-backed vinyl for racing cars.

There’s also healthy demand for informational stickers, such as those marking the function of dashboard switches or safety instructions for a vintage fire extinguisher.

I Say, Ding Dong! has never been busier apart from the COVID-19 years, when sales doubled due to so many people restoring cars and Tony’s passion for classics has driven its success.

Tony’s classic car collection includes a pair of Jaguar XK120s and a 3.4-litre Mk2

He still owns the Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans motorbike he bought new in 1978 as “a wedding present to myself”.

And as we walk between the I Say, Ding Dong! operation rooms, we pass his two Jaguar XK120s (a coupé and drophead), along with a 1964 3.4-litre Mk2 and an immaculate Renault Avantime V6.

Images: Jack Harrison