The specialist: Coventry Metalcraft

By Paul Hardiman

Features

| 16 Oct 2024

Classic & Sports Car – The specialist: Coventry Metalcraft

If you wondered where the bodies for the recent rash of new Ferrari 250GT SWBs came from, look no further.

Seeing half a dozen taking shape is slightly surreal, along with a brand-new Testa Rossa and 250GT California Spider.

Behind, there’s a freshly built Jaguar C-type and Low-Drag E-type.

Racks of completed SWB bootlids and roofs stand by the door. It’s all beautiful work.

The Jaguar C-type buck is one of many in Coventry Metalcraft’s workshop

On the way in, we’ve passed numerous establishments advertising sheet metalwork within.

As more than one staff member observes: “If you can’t find it on Bayton Road, it doesn’t exist.”

Coventry Metalcraft is a newcomer in name, but not in talent.

A kind of ‘supergroup’ in the aluminium-forming business, it was born out of ADV Manufacturing after boss Brendan O’Toole split it off from the rest of the company, whose roots are really in Coventry Prototype Panels.

A classic car’s complex inner body structure, handbuilt at Coventry Metalcraft

After residing in the old Abbey Panels building, CM moved to this building in 2021.

It’s everything you’d expect at a traditional coachbuilder, except in a large, clean and bright facility: nine English wheels, probably made in the ’30s and rescued from one of the firm’s previous incarnations; jigs as far as you can see; a folding press for making bracketry; and, above all, staff – and plenty of them.

Of the 48 who work here, some in prototyping and design, 32 are on sheet metal, and that includes four apprentices – one of whom, Thea, is happily making new Ferrari grilles.

Ferrari dashboard (left) and front grille (right) take shape

“We’ve got a lot of technology,” Brendan says, “but I always focus on the skills.

“Proper coachbuilders have more finesse than repairers, and for me coachbuilding is finding your way around problems. ‘I can make anything’ is the attitude.”

Peculiarly, the working hours are from 6:30am to 2:30pm – “Coachbuilders have always started early!”

Each new and complete aluminium bodyshell takes about six weeks to make, Brendan continues: “They deliver the chassis frames, and we do everything else.”

Rolling fresh panelwork on an English wheel

There are jigs here from companies you might not expect, and the bodies that come out of them are more symmetrical than they were from Modena or (whisper it) Newport Pagnell: “We got an original in, and we knew the left and right were different, so we took an average.”

A recent departure has been to assemble Ford Escort bodyshells for the company that supplies the panels.

Complete shells have been listed for the past couple of years, to the relief of Ford fanciers, but CM goes the extra mile to convert them into Group 4 shells for rallying, with additional welds and bracing, built-in rollcages and oil lines, plus mounts for five-link rear suspension.

Assembling brand-new Ford Escort bodyshells is one of Coventry Metalcraft’s latest projects

“The roof isn’t on yet, because it’s easier to install the cage that way,” shouts Toby Court from under the car.

They make it look so easy... Once the project gets going, they will be churning them out at one a month.

Bespoke furniture, including speaker cabinets and prototyping, have featured here, too.

Although the company is steeped in the corporate world – such as a run of 50 bodies for the Pininfarina-designed Midsummer Morgan project, and its history of building the Aston Martin One-77s, plus Lynx and early Spyker bodies – ‘real people’ can be customers here, too, as the company expands into restoration.

A new Ferrari 250GT SWB’s rear shock-absorber covers (on left) and chassis scuttle (right) come together

Rust was falling from a rotisserie-mounted Jaguar E-type roadster when we visited, and a Volvo P1800 shell was almost complete.

There’s a wait time of about four months for these projects.

As well as a long-awaited book on coachbuilding (if he can ever find the time to write it), there is more promised from Brendan, who was once an owner of competition Land Rover-builder Bowler Motors.

The next project is to resurrect a long-dormant, famous British coachbuilding name: “I’m planning to step back into complete cars.”

Watch this space…

Images: John Bradshaw