For the love of classic cars

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Robert Lewis wasn’t really into old cars, until one balmy afternoon he had an epiphany. Since then, there’s been no stopping him, and he's curated one of the world's most impressive classic car collections. He and his wife Tanya have also raised millions for charity in the process.

Collecting classic cars can be oddly subjective. It often coalesces around an obsession with one make of car. Often just a single model. When a collector invites you to inspect their stable of Maseratis or Cadillacs, the timeline of nuanced variations of the same car might leave you, if not cold, then lukewarm to their addiction.

Even Ferraris. One or two will whet anyone’s appetite for an open road or racetrack, and some right-foot urgency. A hangar-full when they’re uniformly low, lithe, bright red and V12-powered, though? Seems a bit maniacal…

A wonderful paradox

Robert Lewis is not like that. He has a gleeful enjoyment in contrast, and he gets as much satisfaction from well-preserved mundanity as he does from a 250mph road-rocket. Indeed, here’s a wonderful example of this paradox. There are 99 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brakes on this planet, and Robert has one. He loves every sweep of its dramatic lines, but he’s never been anywhere in it. "So, it has zero miles on it,” he says. “We just start it up occasionally.”

However, admire his old lorry that used to deliver cans of petrol to garages and Robert overflows with reverence. “I absolutely love this, even though it only has a top speed of 19mph. Just look inside – look; it’s pretty rudimentary, isn’t it? How they ever drove this half-way across England, I just don’t know. I’ve had to put an electronic ignition in it to make it bearable, but I love all the authenticity in its Shell-Mex BP livery, sign-painting and cargo, all of which I’ve restored. I love to see this wonderful piece of history properly preserved.”

There’s an unusual collecting mindset here, clearly, and it all began with an idle afternoon in Monaco almost 20 years ago.

A lucky coincidence

“To be quite frank, I was in Èze and a bit bored. So, I went out for a walk and came across a sign for a Bonhams auction. I hadn’t that much of an interest in cars, really. I usually drove a Renault Clio, and although my wife did persuade me to buy an Aston Martin DB9, I didn’t really like it – I’d be happier driving an old pick-up!

“But at this auction was this wonderful car turning on a rostrum, a Mercedes-Benz 300SC cabriolet, 1949 and Europe’s first car with fuel injection, so quite important historically. Just magnificent. When it came up, I thought how much I loved that car.

"I asked my wife ‘Shall I just buy a classic car?’ and she said: ‘It’s up to you’. I think I paid £80,000 for it. My first drive was just fantastic, and I’ve been to loads of places in it […] often on rallies with lots of Ferraris; I just cruise past the breakdown trucks attending to them!”

Robert brought the Mercedes home to the UK and put it in one of his empty farm buildings. This simple parking manoeuvre seemed to press a start button: he decided he’d use this covered space to build up a collection. It was 2005.

'A genuine barn find'

He started acquiring in multiple directions. On the one hand, he assembled a line-up of coveted 1920s and ‘30s British high-performance cars, including a Lagonda Rapide, a Lagonda V12 saloon, an Alvis Speed 20 Vanden Plas and a Sunbeam 3-litre Twin-Cam; this last one was that unicorn every enthusiast longs for – a genuine ‘barn find’, in 2008.

“It was the 1926 London Motor Show car,” Robert explains, “and I had it totally restored – well, I had to, because there was no bodywork left, no interior, not even a dashboard.”

Then, taking a different tack, he assembled self-contained sets of the most famous MGs – the PA, TD, K2, K3, MGA and MGB models – and Jaguars – SS100, SS1 Tourer, SS Airline, C-type, D-type, E type and a sought-after Coombs-edition Jaguar Mk2 3.8-litre saloon.

Robert and his wife Tanya were also drawn to the exhilaration of historic motor racing. He selected a faithful recreation of Lagonda’s 1939 V12 Le Mans car, which he’s campaigned six times at the Le Mans Classic festival, while Tanya has regularly donned helmet, goggles and competitive spirit in their delightful Frazer-Nash Le Mans Replica.

So much to admire and enjoy

As Robert leads you from one car to the next, your head spins like a well-oiled propshaft. His Mercedes-Benz 300SL, for example, is one of the finest of these ‘Gullwing’ beauties on Earth, and his Cobra among the last batch overseen by the car’s originator, Carroll Shelby, himself. His Ferrari 250 GT is a gorgeous 1950s supercar most people only know of from reference books. There is exquisite taste at work here, yet the collecting rationale rises above a mere wishlist.

“We’ve only ever bought cars that, to us, are art,” he explains. “I was in such boring businesses that when, all of a sudden, cars just appeared to me, I realised every car here to me has to be beautiful.

"Take my Triumph Dolomite roadster. They made very few, and it’s not that brilliant to drive, and if you sit in the dickey seats at the back, you’re going to get very wet if it rains. But the whole style and character is just fantastic, and I love it.”

Encouraged by a friend and fellow fanatic, Robert has also been seized by the ‘petroliana’ collecting bug. Petroliana is the hardware (pumps and equipment) and regalia (enamel signs and memorabilia) of petrol and oil retailing.

From the 1920s to the ‘60s, fuel companies vied for drivers’ attention with their merchandising, at a time before motorways and when there was an independent garage in every village. The stuff is long-vanished from our streets and byways, and is now hugely valuable and hard-to-find.

Truly shining examples

The illuminated glass globes that crowned old petrol pumps, for instance, can be worth several thousand pounds apiece, while a single enamel sign might command the same value as a brand-new BMW. Becoming adept at spotting gems, nonetheless, wasn’t easy. “The first four [enamel] signs I bought, my friend looked at (them) and told me to put all four into a skip – they were all fakes, totally valueless.

"It’s a hard lesson, but it’s the only way you learn. Now I can tell instantly. I have as much fun with the memorabilia as I do with the cars. I can restore it myself. I’m hands-on and I love renovating things, conserving and being imaginative.”

Raising £8 million for charity

As if the nostalgic environment and setting to Robert’s collection was not distinctive enough, it has another unique aspect.

“We run a very big charitable foundation set up in the 1960s by my father, and I now personally want to give back. So, we thought we’d open the collection up to group visits from companies and organisations in exchange for charitable donations, while some charities we host for free.

"The biggest we’ve had is about 3,000 people in a single day, with 1,000 cars parked here on our fields.” Robert and Tanya have, through their hosting, raised an astounding £8 million for various children’s and medical rehabilitation charities, and Help For Heroes.

Although the collection is not open to the public, invited guests love to have Robert’s guided tour, and the occasional firing-up of a healthy classic engine.

Perfection is demanded

“Look, I’m very fussy,” Robert chuckles – although, of course, he’s dead serious. “I realised that because I’m very fussy, I can only collect cars that could be made into concours condition. So, every single car you’ll see here has been totally restored, 100% correctly, with full documented histories. That’s very hard to find in the pre-war realm of cars, as you can imagine.

"But I have to do everything perfectly. If we acquire a car that isn’t, then I’ll make it perfect; I have an in-house machine shop, a paintshop, our own mechanics, we have everything here. We always have something in progress, and it often costs the purchase price of the car again to do it properly.”

The collection is an evolving thing, subject to interesting influences. One is the increasing involvement of Robert and Tanya’s son Zach, whose love of Formula 1 and modern supercars is reflected in recent additions. ‘Zach’s Garage’ is a building full of gleaming Grand Prix cars and Lamborghinis in a line-up starting with the original 400, running through an eye-catching Miura in period orange, and culminating in a pulse-raising Aventador.

Keeping it in the family

And you can’t fail to enjoy the delicious mismatch between the Koenigsegg Regera hypercar that’s close to Zach’s heart and Robert’s latest obsession, an upright 1903 Georges-Ricard that will tackle this year’s London-to-Brighton Veteran Car Run. The Regera reaches 240mph, the Georges-Ricard struggles above 10mph, and letting it coast to a halt is better than braking, which could damage its 120-year-old power unit.

“I have to thank Tanya for all this,” Robert says. “She’s lived with it all and has accepted me disappearing to Europe, the USA and Japan to buy cars. She’s been there, helped me and never queried a thing. She’s a talented artist and has finished off lots of petrol pumps and things for me.

"Also, my son Zach has worked very hard helping me run this place for the past five years. Plus, of course, all my team: they contribute hugely because I’m not a mechanic.”

Buying though love

Robert likes spur-of-the-moment opportunities that he feels won’t arise again. Such as a Mini Cooper S 1275 owned since new by the same man, and the third example ever made. Or an extraordinary Volkswagen Beetle that had £60,000 lavished on it by an owner who then suddenly lost interest.

“Someone will often ask me what car to buy that will go up in value, and I say ‘none!’,” he booms, emphatically. “Buy because you love it. If you keep it for a number of years because you enjoy it, then it might go up, perhaps not an extraordinary amount.

"We never buy a car because it’s valuable or we think is going to go up because, inevitably, it won’t. I could never advocate that. But then of course, we never buy a car to sell…”

Image credit: Giles Chapman