Passion for Porsche since 1991: Williams Crawford

Welcome to Nineworks Radio, welcome to Cornwall.

Sunny Cornwall todayIt's great

to be here.

Thanks for inviting us.

Yeah, you're welcome.

This is the second visit in quick succession, really.

It was only a couple of weeks ago on a similarly sun-drenched day.

Oh, it was, wasn't it?

Like today, driving that beautiful oak green metallic 911 S with cork interior.

I haven't seen that today.

Is it still here?

Yeah, it's still here.

Excellent.

You liked that, didn't you?

It was beautiful.

And I have to say, exactly as the headline of that video, that is how a G-bodied 911 drives.

It's a very good advert for your business in terms of the cars that are in the showroom, I have to say, because we've seen a lot of impact bumper cars over the years.

And Adrian, you and I were discussing, I think, last time about, you know, it's very easy to chuck big money at a rubbish car when it comes to that era.

And what we try to do at Nineworks is implore people to do your diligence and spend the money on the right car.

Yeah, well,that's always the important thing, I think, is that matching the people to the car.

So some people don't mind having a little bit of a rolling project, you know, and there's a pleasure in that.

But making sure that people understand whether that's actually what they're buying or if they've got the wherewithal and they fancy having something that's really, really nice in the beginning.

But those cars are increasingly rare, you know.

I've been dealing with them for 30 odd years.

Richard's been supporting me with that for probably over 20 years.

And to us, these cars still seem modern because they were quite modern back then.

So our standards are what they were 20 and 30 years ago.

And it's sometimes difficult to get our heads around that, isn't it, Richard?

Yeah, very much so.

And I think selling them openly, honestly, and matching customer to car.

What they expect, what their usage, is it going to be a museum piece, which they end up not using, or something that they're going to be out enjoying and hopefully letting themselves down in?

Yeah, yeah.

Just having a wander around the showroom just now, Andy and I, we're impressed with the variety in there.

And then there really is a good mix of air and water in there.

some transaxle cars, some mid-engines.

Even a mini-moke.

I was going to say, you had your eye on a mini-moke out of everything in there.

There's the Cosworth in there, appeal to my Essex charm as well.

But I guess, and we'll dive into this throughout the podcast, but yeah, that kind of procurement of quality, classic Porsche, that's really where your expertise, from the outside anyway, kind of, I think, comes to the fore.

I think the business is...

30-odd years old now, founded in 91.

And again, off a previous conversation when we went for that lovely lunch a couple of weeks ago, you guys were saying about, I particularly reference you, Adrian, you know, like finding cars on the continent and bringing them back.

That was a real kind of core part of what you were doing, wasn't it, in the early days?

Yeah, well,that made all the difference.

I mean, like us all, like everyone, we've got our dreams.

And I can remember thinking that, You know, when I was starting a business, I want to be dealing with Porsche because I really liked them.

And it was the only thing that I used to drive that didn't fall apart on me.

However, the reality of doing that was really, really difficult, especially down here in Cornwall.

But by a fluke or a chance or whatever, I ended up tapping into buying them in Germany and which is really, in a way, where Richard came in, because when they came in, you had to MOT them, you had to register them, you had to check them and change your lights and do things like that.

And Richard ran a business within a mile of me.

And I remember him phoning up and saying, I'm Richard Williams, got the garage at the top.

If you need any help, please get in touch.

And of course, that's how our association really started.

And although I've been doing it for 30 odd years, Richard has been looking after them for more or less the same amount of time and has gone through almost as many cars as I have.

So that's where his depth of mechanical experience came from.

What was your first exposure to a Porsche sports car then that started this passion?

Well, I mean, we met, I know Adrian, I introduced myself to him, you know, our business was very close to where Adrian was working from.

But I learned my trade at a Lancia dealership and fell for that product.

And alongside the Porsche, you did bring in the odd Integrale and several M3s.

And that was our first communication was over an Integrale.

Because we had a problem with it.

Somebody had informed Adrian.

that uh i might well know what i was doing on them and he brought it to us we managed to repair it and that's where i felt hell i don't have fancy getting involved in these fancy porsches that he's bringing in as well and um you know just seeing them going past our garage maybe the way he drove them as well and i'm thinking i want a piece of that action that seems good to us so I was determined to learn them.

And, you know, with Adrian's help and his generosity at the time of allowing me to use them, drive them, experience them, and then the passion comes, you know, as you go along.

So, yeah, it was definitely off the back of Adrian that I managed to experience the drive of them.

My absolute first passion for them was we ran, as a family, traditional Essel garages.

Yeah.

And...

When you re-signed with Esso, they would come to the party and say, sell our fuel for another five years.

You know, what can we do for you?

Well, this was right on the stage, especially in Cornwall, probably a bit behind the times, of leaving attended service and going to, you know, self-service.

And they sent down one of their in-house design guys, and he turned up in a 964.

He jumped out, he had a pinstripe suit on, and there's a lad from Callington Comprehensive School looking at this guy.

I thought, wow, this is the real, what a look.

You know, good looking guy, pinstripe suit, red 964.

I thought, this is my dream.

This is where I'm heading.

This is what I want.

And unbelievably, he was a local gent.

He'd lived in Bubby Tracy.

And six years ago, I had a phone call.

I picked up the phone.

Gentleman started telling me about a 964 he'd had since new.

And I was asking him the question.

He said, it's done over 250,000 miles.

I want to have it refurbed, but I want it to carry on being usable.

And I said, okay.

I said, a lot of mileage.

What did you do?

He said, oh, I used to work for Essel.

No way.

I said, oh, my good God.

I said, okay.

I've met you.

I said, I have met you.

You came to our garage.

I can remember.

I said, you started it all.

And he came down.

He also brought an E-Type down here as well that we worked on.

And, yeah, that was where it really started.

How fantastic is that?

And to have that come back around and him still own it.

And, yeah, it was a 250,000 miles appropriate conditioned car.

But he wanted it back all working.

And, yeah, that was good to do.

That's amazing.

That was reallygoodto do.

Yeah.

Love that story.

Fantastic.

Did he still have the suit?

That's the question.

Did it still fit?

He wasn't looking quiteas chipper as he did probably maybe 30-odd years ago.

But yeah, he still had an edge.

He had thelook, but he had the worn look like the 964 did.

Amatchedpair, as we say.

That is the very best thing.

Andy and I were having a similar conversation on the journey down about the beauty of classic cars and how they start conversations, they start connections.

And they literally start journeys, you know, and that is a real full circle moment that you've had there, Richard.

That isso cool.

The grounding of what my parents, how hard they made us work and the traditional garage and how good customer service we gave.

Our alignment of myself and Adrian, it made it easy for us, you know, because we could, yeah, we've looked after people.

We've donea good job.

Lovethatstory.

That isawesome.

Adrian, what about yourself?

So my father, I'm not certain I'm proud to mention this.

I usually tell people that he was a motorcycle dealer, so I grew up with motorcycles, but he actually sold a few three-wheelers.

Reliant Robins.

And, of course, I was desperate to get my hands on anything that actually had a wheel on it.

Each corner, you know, this was a really important thing to stop you tipping over, it seemed.

And I liked my driving, one thing or another.

And my dad went and bought off a friend of the Porsche family a 911 Targa, a 73 car.

It would have been a 2.4e

in that sort of goldy-yellow metallic colour.

And I was beside myself.

I thought, this is a proper piece of kit.

He'd had Lotus, he'd had all sorts of stuff.

But, you know, this Porsche, it turned up.

And how old were you at that time?

I'd have been 17.

Wow, formative.

So I was ready to get my hands on it.

And then he wrote it off the same week.

He got himself a bit out of balance between adventure and...

and skill level, and he wrote this thing off.

And I was beside myself with anger, really.

And so that was my first experience of really, really wanting one.

And then all the other stuff I used to drive, you know, the brakes would fail or this or they'd wear out wheel bearings or they'd blow up on me or whatever.

And I started getting involved in things like, well, the first one was early 924.

which you couldn't break.

You couldn't go that fast, but you couldn't break.

And 94 turbos and 4.4

turbos and 911s and it just sort of, you know, those cars worked and I loved the motorsport heritage.

You know, I was always interested in motorsport.

I was always doing stuff myself, usually rallying.

And, you know, that connection with that look through the car where you see the driver and the little quarter window of a sort of air-cooled Porsche and the big rev counter in the middle, you know, shooting down Le Mans, down the Mulsanne Strait at 230 miles an hour or something, that every time you get in the 911, you see that and I think,

oh yeah, this is a proper piece of cake.

You know, this is like being developed somewhere, probably, you know.

It's not being developed in America by Elon.

This is proper gear.

I think maybe the original advert sort of, the tagline should have been, Adrian can't break these.

I think he would have been quite renowned for pushing things to their limits, you know, back in the day.

It'shis testing of engineering.

Absolutely.

It makes me smile when he talks about his dad sold three wheelers because although we live 10 miles apart, I was very aware of Adrian Crawford.

And, um, i believe that most of his rs2000s he returned to three wheelsquite the reputation yeah yeah for sure what um yeah because again you know like the the i guess the the backbone of like the early business days for you adrian especially from like this modern perspective really interesting with yeah that they import and export of of those cars because It was so much more difficult to do now.

And from our previous conversations you've had, you were good at it and it was prolific and far more straightforward.

But I'd love to know how you got into that.

And I'm sure there's some funny stories along the way as well.

Well, Iused to always take the Sunday Times.

And the first thing I'd do is turn to the motor in pages in the classified because you get the odd little gem out of that.

And there's an advert in there.

And it said, I'm in Germany.

I export Integralis E30 M3s, Mercedes Evolution, Porsche 911.

And call me.

Thank you.

And I called and couldn't get a response.

And advert was out next week.

You know, not letting this die.

I'm calling again.

And it was Matt Bernard.

And I flew across and...

And I picked up, my first car was a 190 Evolution, in a Cosworth Evo.

And that was all the money I had in the world, and then stuff that I'd scraped together from other places.

And Bernard turned up in an 83 911 SC cab in Nugget, Brown.

Done like 44 kilometres or something, you know, first paint, summer use, full check heft.

everything right about it and fell free i said bernard how much is that you know and it worked out i think a deutschmark was like 134 or something like that and it worked out about 11 grand 10 grand or something and i thought i'm buying 911 scs from people that have bounced off every curb in london you know for like 10 or 11 grand and selling them for 12 or 13,000 or something.

And you could buy this brand new 83 cab that looked like it had come out of someone's sock drawer for nothing.

And that was it.

So as soon as the Mercedes had gone, then I was back to Bernard.

And then he would be sending me stuff.

And then after a while, the best bits were bringing them back.

because, you know, you were on holiday.

So everything's legal on holiday.

And you were also in Germany.

And, you know, I'd bring them back on export plates.

So they'd have like a week or two weeks of export plates.

That was the first of it.

And it was just like the world's most fantastic drive back, you know.

Would they have all beenleft-hand driveat the time?

Yeah, yeah.

So that was my gig, really, is that I would advertise them I've got copies of the adverts even now, but it would be something like, you know, if you're fed up looking at poor condition, over-described right-hand drives, then I've got the solution.

You know, as long as you don't mind sitting on the other side of the car, you can buy the self-same thing with less mileage, newer models, so it's like, you know, you've turned off in a three-litre SC.

If that was a right-hand drive at the time, it would have been like 12, 13 grand.

If it was a left-hand drive, you could have had maybe a G50 with 50,000 kilometres on it, first paint, summer use, you know, for the same money.

And so that appealed to people that were usually in London and they'd either be Europeans or Brits that had lived overseas or...

People like me that just got fed up looking at rubbish.

And I hadn't I had a website in 96.

So that was like really early.

It's taken me nearly 30 years to work out why I only sold to it.

telecoms and banking because they were the only ones that had a website as well so i was peering out one window and they looking in the same window you know so um and i think that that was um you know obviously did it with a lot of planning but um i none at all it was pure survival but that's that's how it started and then we used to get You know, up at Richard's Garage, you'd get the gent in the house opposite,

a name I never knew, who phoned me, and say, Adrian, your transport has arrived, you know, and it'd be 10 to 7 on a Tuesday night, you know, and you'd go up there and there'd be all these lines of...

Amazing.

Turning up to a sleepy village in Cornwall, you can imagine the little rumours about these guys bringing these cars in and there's no number plates on them.

You know, what is going on?

We might have played on that a littlebit.

It was because there's obviously there's that slight, these days, that slight differentiation between like left and hand drive and right hand drive cars here in in the uk has that changed or always like say back in the day was it easier to sell someone a left-hand drive car or was it harderwell when i first started it they were about 30 percent cheaper so you know i could sell one to you lee and have a better car

and you'd still be you know 20 ahead or 10 ahead um so I was selling them on quality and price.

And frankly, you know, you're only like a metre from where you would normally criticise.

You know, if you were driving with your missus, you're quite capable of sitting on the left-hand side criticising her driving.

You know, so you can judge how to drive a car from either side, no problem at all.

A little bit of confidence needed.

As the exchange rate changed and, you know, towards the end of the 90s, we had that rip-off Britain thing where everyone realised that the Europeans were getting things cheaper than us.

So our new car prices came down.

I remember like a Boxster at the time was about 44 grand.

And in Europe, it's 35 grand, you know, brand new.

So we brought all our prices down.

That sort of impacted the used market.

And then the exchange rate began to change.

And, you know, by then we'd been into the Euro.

And by the time that your car came in from Switzerland, that was the last of it in 2000.

So nowadays, if I have a car that turned up from Europe in, say, 2002, I'd be like, why did that turn up?

Because it was no longer commercially viable to do so.

Yeah.

So yours would have been the last of it.

And the Swiss thing had a few little wrinkles because there might have been elements there that those cars could have been cheaper.

They had very, very nice cars and they could have been cheaper and they were sort of a smaller market because the Europeans or the Germans, which was the main buyer of them, wouldn't really want a Swiss one because of the low power.

Okay.

Interesting.

So they would rather buy one from Berlin or wherever else in Germany or even in Europe rather than the Swiss.

So the Swiss always had a slightly lower value.

Andthat was because they had additional emissions.

Emissions.

So a bit like the American cars.

Yeah, I think a 3.2

was a 217 horsepower car rather than our full-fat 232.

And the American was, I don't know, 220 or something like that.

Ah, interesting.

Yeah, so that was a background with it.

So then, you know, when the markets change like that, it takes a little bit of time, but...

it flipped over then where we're selling them back to Europe.

So if you've got a nice German car, you can sell it back to a German and they'll be happy enough with that.

But you're selling it at a discount to their market then.

Yeah.

So I recently sold, well, it was a couple of years ago now, I sold my left-hand drive 993 and that's gone to Spain.

And that was obviously, as you said, the tables had turned in that it's more attractive over there than it is in the UK now.

Yeah, very interesting.

Yeah, that's how it's gone.

For me, probably Richard would back me up on this.

If I was buying an air-cooled car, you know, G Series, F Series, 993, I would prefer to take a left hand.

I'm...

Only recently I discovered that I wasn't six foot, I was actually five foot ten.

I've been telling people I'm six foot all my life, you know, so it's like that fish story, you know.

Anyhow, I discovered I was only five foot ten.

A midget.

Can you say that?

It's not just his heighthe'sdiscovered.

He's been over-exaggerating for quite some time now.

If youcan't say midget, an MG midget, it's a little car, you know.

And where were we?

Preferring left-hand drive.

And just like the ergonomics on them with the offset pedals and stuff, work better as a left-hand drive, you know.

Totally agree with that.

So...

I would always go in that direction.

Smile on our face with a left-hand drive turning up.

You know, both our rally cars are left-hand drive, race cars left-hand drive, you know, so, yeah, very often walk to the wrong door, honestly.

We're more in tune with going to the left-hand side.

Ithink particularly, like, with that era of car, and again, we said it on the video of the 911 S there, is your main driver of a car has got to be condition...

You could buy a really poor right-hand drive car or you could buy a really nice left hooker.

The left hooker has surely got to be the obvious choice because it's a classic car.

You're not really going to be worrying about overtaking people anyway, are you?

There's no need for it.

You can enjoy the ride as it is.

adds to that, you know, there's something different.

You do go to the wrong side and you're like, oh yeah, I'm getting in this car today.

Obviously,other than those Swiss ones that they're worth next to nothing.

Now I know.

That's where I was going with the Swiss conversation.

I'm going tolever it out of you.

He's trying to buy it from me.

To me, the left-hand and right-hand thing now is almost a sideshow because the cars have got that much older.

In...

In broad terms, yes, you might find a better left hand if you're looking at a classic.

But the market is so varied, you know?

And it's so difficult for the normal man in the street to discern what is really good and what is just shiny and being bid on or something, you know?

These cars, they're so...

If I was buying a used piano, I'm going to go to a piano expert because I don't know anything about pianos other than they make a noise and my daughter wants one.

You know?

Such a good analogy.

Yeah.

So I have to go to a piano expert because otherwise I'm just out there judging it on blokey things like how big is it?

How shiny is it?

And, you know, I like the colour.

And...

These things, there's no getting away from it.

They are expensive to restore, to do any major works to.

And it can really contaminate the market when people have bad experiences.

Because you have a bad experience, you're going to tell a few people and then that's not helping us.

So if we can put people into the right car, it doesn't have to be a perfect one.

It could be a project, it could be a pile of bits it could be a perfect one as long as it's right for them and they know what they're getting that's the key do you know what you're getting into you know any of us here if we were offered the thing that we really liked but we know what we're into you're home and dry you know you can make a grown up decision that's the main thing for me I love the piano analogy, it's fantastic.

It's great,isn't it?

It is great.

I'm certain there must have been, Adrian, over the years and the many kilometres done on those cars on the European mainland, I'm certain there's got to be a funny story or two tucked away.

Surely.

I was...

Most of it relates...

Most driving goes to the European stuff.

But I had a gent in only yesterday with a 996 Turbo.

And I think this is an interesting sort of little segue, really.

996 Turbo, he's done 103,000 miles with it.

He likes his car, but he's feeling a little bit tired.

So we're doing a complete refresh on the suspension, largely.

Suspension and brakes and his seat.

Because the seat's a bit saggy.

And...

Mechanical side of it, car's great, you know, pulls strong, gears are nice, body's lovely, interior's lovely.

But he just wants to refresh it and make it feel new again.

And I said to him, I said, oh, Martin, you know, he's, I said, in my very first 996 Turbo, I said, I bought in Strasbourg in December.

I remember the Christmas market was on.

It was in 2001, so this was a really, really new car.

I think it had done about 6,000 clicks with a non-sunroof car, and I bought it for a chap here in the UK.

A number of things happened.

One, I was in Strasbourg, which I thought was in...

germany but was in france i thought i'd need my flip-flops but it was actually freezing worse than that they didn't want to release the car because they hadn't received the money and they wouldn't give me the paperwork and we had this like weekend thing and a party to that i wanted to get to on the way home and one thing another and i was going to deliver this car off yeah it's been a Big old hoo-ha and whatever.

Eventually, they let me take the car.

Friday night, I'm driving back at, you know, terminal velocity in this thing, which is quite quick.

And I get a phone call, and they say, which port are you heading to?

And I thought, this sounds like really, really tricky.

I remember the name of the business as well.

I'd best not give it away here.

Which port are you heading to?

I'm from Cornwall and a bit slow, but I thought, if they're going to cause trouble, it's going to be at the port I give them the name to.

So I decided, yeah, that was the best I could come up with.

I should have said Amsterdam or something, but I didn't think of it.

And I booked into this hotel, sat on the end of the bed, I thought I really ought to cry because I thought this is really going to go peak-tongue.

I'm going to be in jail.

I don't have any paperwork for a car.

I'm driving in Europe.

I'm on trade plates.

All these things had a degree of greyness about them.

And I also want to get this party as well.

And the next day, a phone call comes from my German colleague, and he says, oh, no, no, no, they got your money.

You're all good to go.

So anyway, another high-speed run back home.

massive great boulder coming down the motorway at me.

I saw it coming.

It pinged off the bonnet, smashed the windscreen, kept on going, drove it straight back to my customer.

He said, what about the dent on the bonnet?

I said, honestly, I don't care.

I said, it's yours now.

Just get me to my rental car ASAP.

I don't care any longer.

It's like...

It was a hell of a run, and it always reminded me, whenever I have 996 turbos, I think, wow, those cars are good.

Gives you PTSD almost.

Yeah, they were really, really good.

Back then I was able to have, A, a really good run, and B, try one when it was new at high speed.

That was one of my favourite road trips.

I had a few like that.

Brilliant.

So obviously we know about the phone call, Richard, that you kind of put into Adrian then.

When did like, was there like the formal unification, if you like, of the Williams Crawford business?

Well, we, you know, become friends over the unofficial business together of Adrian selling and myself prepping.

And we both decided to change it up a little bit.

Adrian had moved away from a property and and was going to slow down the operation a little bit.

It was hugely busy, and I think you were going to take up sailing at the time.

You were going to learn to sail until you let yourself down in front of a few people locally, but the plan was going to be sailing.

There is truth in that.

There's still a couple of pictures locally that we could get up.

And I, for the traditional garage, my parents, Parents were retiring and we had multiple sites at the time and I was going to split up the one that I were running at the time and the petrol forecourt and the car sales and the workshop.

So I was going to do more car sales, try and take it a little bit easier and start to feel the love for it again.

We did that separately and used to compete a little bit about car sales and bounce the ball off each other and possibly were...

not enjoying it as much as I thought, missed the amount of customers, missed the amount of excitement, and we went for a walk one evening, and we live in the same village, went for a walk one evening, there was a five-bar gate, and he was one side, I was the other, and I believe, to my memory, I said, what about if we let the handbrake off your business, and let's give it a go together?

Why don't we And he must have over a week moment said, go on then.

Let's do it.

What do you remember, Adrian?

I don't remember any of that.

A very good bottle of wine.

Beforehand, yeah.

Especially the sailingbit.

But yeah, it seemed like it was, I think I was getting a bit dull and bored because although it was working nicely and I enjoyed the cars and, you know, I'm a nice life out of it and things.

I like excitement.

I like a challenge.

That's why we're humans, isn't it?

Because we want more.

We want to do more.

If we weren't like that, we'd all be living in the cave.

So bringing Richard's knowledge about the service side of it into the business, moving the business just down the road from here, actually, into a unit, it seemed only sensible that we might just benefit from service customers buying cars and people we sold cars to buying service.

That seemed like, you know, why did I miss that over the years?

And the reason is I never wanted to expand the business at the time.

So we went and I remember we looked at a little unit down here and we could get, I don't know, like 10 or 12 cars in it or something.

We thought that was big enough.

And I said, well, let's just take the other one, which was like twice the size.

And let's see, you know, let's do that.

And that's what we did.

And that's what sort of started the Williams Crawford thing.

And it's...

A bit of a zigzaggy journey, you know, and there's some little bumps in the road that you've got to overcome.

But the overall thing is that with the people we attract, we get really, really good people.

You know, that 99.9%

of them you'd sit down and have a coffee with.

They're nice people.

They...

genuinely share your passion for it.

You know, that's, I'm sure that you guys find the same thing.

They share the passion.

They're willing to, they're encouraging your success.

You know, they're just pleased to find people that can talk in their language, I suppose.

And it's hard to let go of that.

And You know, we've obviously expanded it because Richard and I have both got this thing where we keep saying yes to people.

You know, whatever you want, it's a yes.

But, yeah, that's the core of it.

The people that you get in the Porsche world, I think, are generally reasonably well sorted, whether they've got a Boxster or they've got something really more exotic.

They're reasonably well sorted because otherwise the most sensible thing is to buy a I undie with an eight-year warranty, isn't it?

If they want transportation, that's your good plan.

So, yeah, that's how it sort of happened.

Awesome.

And then, like, reference the amount of variety there is in the showroom in the present day.

Was that always a conscious decision from the both of you that we're going to, as long as it's got Stuttgart prancing horse on the front, we're interested?

I know there's a couple of extra...

bits and pieces down there as well.

But yeah, how did you kind of formulate what you like to work with?

Ibelieve, you know, looking in when Adrian was, you know, we were working separately, I always thought the cars would be the appeal.

You know, wow, I didn't realise that the customers were going to be the biggest appeal because the people that they attract, as Adrian rightfully says, 99.9%,

coffee you'd have them at home they're lovely and and they're interesting and yeah yeah it's such good customer base with the product um it has to interest us and it has to fit in with our vision of the car being able to match it to a customer or If it's a non-product, if it's a mini mocha of Cosworth

or, you know, Renault Clio, it has to have an interest to us or a story with it for us to be interested.

And as we've brought more and more expertise in, we've got Graham from 356, you know, anything, if it's air-cooled, an expert.

And then with the modern workshop moving, so...

the more people you boat into your business and as it grows naturally and we keep encouraging it all the time to bring the next in, bring the next in, our range just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

We looked at, I remember having a conversation where Richard and I were like, do we want to have such a big business?

You know, we sort of like have to go to the next level or maybe we can suppress it and enjoy it the way it was.

And I remember we had a conversation that would have gone along the lines of, should we just do service?

Should we just do sales?

Should we just do air-cooled?

Should we just do moderns?

And the snag with all of that is that the customer base that we built up, a lot of them would have all of that.

They'd have your modern and your classic, and they'd be doing a bit of maintenance and buying and selling.

So how can you say to someone, well, I can sell you a 997, but I don't want anything to do with your 911 2.4.

You know, you're serving the customer.

And so we gave up with that idea.

I don't know how long it took us to figure it out.

Some time probably.

But we, with, you know, you have a customer in America that we can restore cars for, but we'll turn up here in a new one.

Yeah.

And to feel we can look after him everything, all of his fleet.

And also for the local man that's got a 924 and 986 Boxster, we want to be able to look after him as well.

That's really important to us that everybody can come here.

Everyone's welcome.

Everybody's welcome and everybody should have the same service.

We are so proud of our staff that...

If I walk through the showroom and there's a gent there, I'll say, you've been looked after, sir.

He said, you're the third person to ask me that.

You know, the girl.

That's what we love about the place.

Really, really important to me, us, to have people looked after, no matter what Porsche they have.

Talking of staff, how many strong are younow?

Including Adrian and I, I believe it's 28 now.

Wow.

Sizeable.

Packed a lot of people in this little spot in Cornwall.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you say, yeah, like little.

I think this place is like...

massive to be honest yeah i haven't done the tour yet yeah the the workshop i think last time i was here was it like it was eight ramps i thinkum yeah there's i think it's 11 but is it okay wow yeah you're not that good yeah yeah yeah that's right you would clean outyeah yeah i mean that is yeah you know that's that that's big and then again you know the the showroom itself is like a labyrinth you follow and there's another little gem over there and then there and then obviously like at the you follow

that through to the other side of the building.

And that's like your, I guess, special projects might be the best way to put it.

Yeah.

When was thatborn?

Just you're about like, you know, the rabbit warren of the workshop and then up the back.

And then sometimes when you're here day to day, you're busy and you're dealing with customers and you're walking around and you've got other stuff on and you're possibly not looking at everything that's going on here.

Yeah.

You go home of an evening and, and you have a customer do a video of the place and post it on his Facebook and I'll sit there and watch it and I couldn't be any prouder.

You know, when you're at home and you're, you know, back with the family and, you know, in a good place and you're just watching it and think, hell, that all goes on all day, every day and, you know, we're a big part of that.

We're not, it's not just Adrian and I, we're just a big part of it and yeah, it makes us very, very proud.

Do you remember that there was a Porsche advert years and years ago, I don't know, probably 20 years ago, it was a TV advert and it was a boy, it was, I always thought of it as boy on the bike and it showed this young lad and he's looking in the show.

997, wasn't it?

I can't remember.

But you know, looking in the window and you think, oh God, you know, and then I was here one night You know, it was all closed and whatever.

I'll show him lights were on.

I was looking in the window.

I thought, I'm the boy on the bike.

You know, that's me.

You can't imagine that you end up with this scenario going on.

There's no, I think whatever you're passionate about, if you follow it, then that's the right path for you.

That lives in your strapline, doesn't it?

Passion for Porsche.

It does indeed, yeah.

Or Porsche, should Isay.

I don't care how you say it.

How do you say it in Cornwall?

What's yourpreference?

Yes, so talk to us about the special projects or special works division.

How did that come about?

Because there's loads going on at the back there.

I think as it started to grow, we could see that the modern servicing, and when I say modern, you know, water, so that was run in a slightly different way to the care that some of the air cools needed, that maybe our experience, being able to engage with the customer, really listen to what the usage of his car was going to be, and then finding

out what he had, telling him the truth, of what he had rather than what he thought he had maybe bought or owned.

And then being able to walk alongside him and improve over a period of time, learn his vehicle, learn the customer, that had to be a little bit slower than day-to-day, in and out servicing and clutches and all the rest of it.

So that's where that side of the building started to take shape that, oh, that will be one for...

special wishes.

And when you start to build up that with the customer and then he starts to reveal his other cars in his collection, we already knew the customer.

We just then had to learn his next car or if it's not Porsche, maybe sometimes.

But that's really how that started.

Then we started to have the inquiries of, well, we like the we've looked up the singer you know can you back date and agent said earlier the answer was always yes and then we would carry on and fulfill sowell i see that i i see this thing for the future whereby i think 997 sixes and back i think that these cars

are perfect to be revitalized, modernized, made, not necessarily made new again, but made new for the owners again.

I think that there's a growing sector of people that will like the attributes of those older cars that um do you know anyone like that leewell i've been trying my best to fluff that one for the last few years but yeahbut they're smaller and more agile the roads have got tighter and you know they're even more suitable for today's motor in than they were probably back

then and so i i think that we're seeing that and we've just done a safari build on a A little 3.2

for a gentleman that lives abroad but also has a home in London.

And people said, you know, what's he going to use it for?

Is he entering the Dakar?

I said, no, he's probably entering his local Domino's Pizza.

But he can go over the curb and park on the verge.

And, you know, it looks cool.

It drives great.

And I think Richard's got someone coming in now for a Cayenne build.

Yeah, tomorrow.

Oh, wow.

A Safari Cayenne build.

And I'm not saying Safari is the new thing, but I think that when people reinvest in these cars, they can choose...

They can choose a style that suits them.

It might be a hot rod style.

It might be slightly modified or just modernized.

It could be all sorts of things.

I thinkPorscheare great for that.

We'd all stand here, look out the window, and if you saw a Boxster turn up as a something, you know, a speedster.

um, style.

We'd all be out there looking at it thing.

And this is fantastic.

You know, you can accept it with, with this, this, um, brand.

And I'd love that.

Yeah.

With, with UK cars.

Well, it's not the cars.

It's, it's the clientele, the UK enthusiast market.

We've always, we tended to be a bit of a stickler for like originality in comparison to the Yanks, for example, that are really happy to modify their cars and whatnot.

Um, Obviously, Andy and I, the two of us, we have modified Porsches.

We see the draw to it.

Do you feel that in recent years that is changing in the British market and enthusiasts are a little bit more happy to modify the cars or are you still seeing people that want a fastidious factory spec restoration?

We get both and we're capable of doing both.

We're capable of doing a world-class restoration on cars.

cars.

The guys have just come back from Essen and had a look around, seeing if there's people there doing something that's significantly different to us.

And quality-wise, we can cope with that.

We've got the expertise on air-cooled, because we remember how they should be and which nuts and bolts should have gone on to them.

We've got the expertise on the 356, because you know, Graham...

can genuinely build a car out of bits that you collect off the floor.

You know, like dust and rust.

He can make a new one out of it.

So you get that part of it.

But I think that this personality that you can put into a car is a really important part of it.

And it makes me slightly...

uncomfortable when i hear that someone's taken a car for restoration somewhere and the shop have said we will only do it back to the original spec the original color it's their car they can choose we'd help them with like choosing something that um It's like baking a cake.

I don't do that.

But I'm just imagining baking a cake that, you know, you need the right ingredients for it to taste nice and look great.

And it's the same on a car.

You could have the wrong ingredients and the thing just doesn't work that well.

We're really well placed to advise people on that.

And I think this feeling that you've got something special, it's unique to you, you've put some personality into it We love that.

And the thing is, it seems to me that whatever we represent, whether we're passionate about it or we like certain things, you tend to get that following back.

So we don't get so many people that will count the rivets.

We'll get...

Guys like you two.

You know, that's just, that would be typical.

It's like, there's three, if you can simplify it, which is difficult because it's a complex subject, but there's almost like three main arterial routes to go down when it comes to restoration.

You've either got your exacting factory spec, the other end of the spectrum entirely is the all-out complete change, layering, modification.

But then there's that middle ground, which perhaps, you know, like say your car, Andy, may tread down, which we've discovered might not even be a three litre now, might be slightly different.

But a car that, you know, has had its engine rebuilt, it's been given a bit of extra pep, but to look at that car is stock.

And, you know, I mean, like the 76 or the 911 S, sorry, the Oak Green metallic car driven a couple of weeks ago, you know, that again just had...

couple of really small but I think crucial details like the suspension refresh the classic retrofit electric air conditioning which like really enhances the the user experience with that car yeah but but you know there's so much about that car that's still really faithful and really original we haveI've got an old motorbike of my dad's and it's an old BSA well as a child I remember him having it and it's just as I remember him owning that bike and I have customers

come in and not criticise it, but will say, oh, that mudguard's not off a BSA something, something.

I said, yeah, but it was my dad's.

So, you know, for me, I don't care.

And we have customers with Porsche that say, oh, I've strozak kits or something on them.

And I said, oh, wow, you know that?

He said, yeah, but that was my dad's.

And that's how it's staying.

And like, fantastic, isn't it?

You know, they're so personal to the person.

And if somebody wants to lightweight it, you know, more performance, better braking, air conditioning, power steering, absolutely.

And I think it's the Porsche takes that.

I think the...

upgrades are genuine upgrades they don't take anything away from the car i think itonly adds to it you really do definitely and it only you know if you're paying the bills that's the opinion that ultimately matters yeah no nobody elsewithadvicebecause there's there's time we'll say you can do it please you do what you like but maybe this matches well with that you know they get in the balance yeah for sure so that if you are what's your usage What you're going to do, sprinting hill climbs,

fantastic.

You know, this class with a road car, with a little bit of safety and a little bit of this, you're good to go.

Maybe don't concentrate on going down that route because that's taking it away from your main purpose of the car, you know.

So it's lovely to hear their story and then match the car with our input or no input, depending on, you know, how strong the customer is.

But we enjoy that verymuch.

It seems like there's a lot of variety involved out the back there again particularly like reference g-body cars and obviously as we well know and and andy you might even be a little bit responsible for this but where there's there has been that rise in value of those cars and certainly like more wide interest among enthusiasts in acquiring that car over the last couple of years.

Not those Swiss ones, though.

Not the underpowered Swiss engines.

Sorry, I justwant to be clearon Andy's.

Andy's next to worthless.

Anyway, sorry, carry on.

But, you know, yeah, when they were...

When they were, you know, 10, 20 grand cars, the people were kind of more happy to fiddle with them and X, Y, Z.

But where the value increases there, perhaps it does encourage...

a slightly different viewpoint.

But again, there seems to still nevertheless be a lot of variety in the back where people are playing with those cars.

Andalso you've got the vantage here.

If you bring a little bit of a hot rod and it's coming in and we have a chance to sell it, our passion for being able to, you know, Adrian on a walk around Wednesday will be able to pick that car out and say, no, this isn't for the purists.

But, brace yourself I've just been down it handles it breaks it does it you know you get that across to somebody at home that's saying hell that's what I fancy that's my Porsche experience I want it to be that I don't want to find an excuse not to use that car we have people want to make them perfect but they're going essentially to a museum or to storage other people want to be able to have a Sunday morning say I'm off to get the paper and

And I'm taking my Porsche, and I'm going to do a 50-mile rip around and get the paper.

And yeah, if it gets a car parked, then hey-ho.

But I'm having my experience of the Porsche, and that's lovely that everybody gets that opportunity.

We had a 356 here that had had a full restoration, and there was some argument over the original colour of it.

And this goes all the way back to the fact that Porsche would build you what you wanted if you'd pay for it.

So they were modifying cars, even though they, you know, that word possibly wasn't in usage, but they would build you what you wanted.

And we had this three, five, six, and there was some like argument over whether we painted it the right color.

And then we painted it, you know, like off whitey color, because that was on the original card X.

It's what the customer wanted.

But we also found evidence that it had been delivered in a blue colour.

And it turned out that a shipping magnate wanted it for his wife.

Their flag was this light blue colour.

When they bought it from Porsche, Porsche took a white one, they painted it blue, stuck it on the transporter, shipped it to the bloke, took his money, job done.

And so what colour should that car be?

Mm-hmm.

the car is delivered in or the color it was so i like that i mean it it takes a little bit of working out what what on earth had happened to this car but um yeah anyway it's white nowwhat um what about like the racing because certainly like in your spare time you guys are out racing cars all over the place So where was that love for

competition?

Where did that come from?

Well,I think from myself and my father, motorsport, but F2 stock cars and hill climbs.

So when I was younger, I was always around it.

always afar you know our local Warrington Hill climb and just seeing the modified cars and the way they were being used and ever since I passed me test I mean it would be one chaos to the next and trying to improve and trying to go faster and you know the advantage of being in the motor trade and working for your parents insurance yeah where all my friends were having to consider you know their Fiesta had to be a 1.1

I could drive an RS2000 so hell It was easy to get into motorsport because you could always ensure the kit.

It wasn't the most valuable thing on the road, but it was quick and you could let yourself down in it.

When we got together and we did a little bit of twin shock, motorbike racing really did together and that was enjoyable and a group of friends.

And then as we were getting older and we were starting to cover the ground probably a bit faster, we saw the odd person hurting themselves.

Maybe it was time to focus back on the cars.

Adrian's Motorsport is, you know, a proper different level to mine, historically.

But now, to race that product, to go to these events, to share with our friendship group, customers that have become friends, friends that have become customers.

Wow.

You know, it's dream stuff.

And I don't forget that.

You know, anytime I look at it, even looking out the window now, I can see Adrian's rally car is parked opposite.

And yeah, it puts a smile on my face because I can think of memories.

You talked earlier about Adrian's road trips and coming back from Europe.

But we went to the ice race down in Otenmark.

We took down an agent's 911.

We drove down together, exhausted all our conversation.

But it was actually one of them, I think it was my sister's birthday.

So I was flying back.

Adrian was going to drive back from Otemark, Austria by himself.

I think it was 1,200 miles or whatever.

It's a two-day trip.

And after I flew into London, I had a fantastic night at this party.

Woke up the next morning, looked at my phone, and I had something like 12 missed calls from Adrian.

I thought, what's it doing?

I thought, this might be a bit interesting.

How's it going, Adrian?

Not great.

It's stuck in third.

Oh, my God.

Oh,yeah.

Well, I didn't have any gears for a while, but I've managed to reach underneath and I've got third gear.

But you were in...

Belgium at the time in the capital um in a car park all the way home 20 you know my flight and a train trip home seemed a hell of a lot more enjoyable than Adrian's third year um trip home from a motorsport event so we very lucky to do it um very lucky to be that it's Porsche andit's what we absolutely love.

We've got these, um, friendship group, customers, friendship group, um, probably half a dozen old Porsche.

And sometimes we'll all go places together.

We've done so many events where we've all driven there, done the event, driven back, you know, bronze, silver, gold award, bronze is getting there, silver's doing it, gold's getting home in one piece.

And we've, you know, we've, That's like in these ancient old Porsche and we're travelling in minus 14 in the snow in blizzards and stuff to do a six and a four hour ice race on studs that we acquire when we're down there and then you drive home again and we've done that a few times and we've done other types of events like it.

It gives you a real appreciation for the car and Just like going on to the present day, the car that Andy, you're going to try later, or maybe both of you will try later, is my rally car.

It's just come back from Costa Brava, FIA rally over there.

The entry was unbelievable.

I've never been amongst such high quality historic cars, all doing a proper competition.

But there must have been 30 or 40 Group 4 911s there.

They are a really effective tarmac car in Europe.

And I think, I don't know how many of them made it back onto their wagons, but most of them did.

And two years before I did a rally in Switzerland the bloody van broke down in Dijon and I drove my rally car to Switzerland did a two and a half day tarmac round drove it back to Dijon collected the van and came home towed it home yeah literallylet me just sayhonestly you know that's to me that's good I mean a real bigger thought is that our preparation

is good You know, we know how to make the things work, and we know how to keep them working.

But come on, I mean, this is a 40-, 50-year-old car, and you go there and you thrash your life out of this poor little thing.

Mine's more or less a standard car, just like yours, with safety gear in it.

And how good is that?

That's like...

That's like real passion.

That makes me feel like I am on the Mulsanne straight, you know, back in 1978 or something, you know, doing 200 miles an hour.

Yeah, I think most cars of a similar age are lucky enough to be present in a photograph these days, you know, let alone still out there in the metal and being used in historic competition.

Being hammered.

Well, the last time we went to Audemars for the classic ice race, six cars.

All Porsche.

We travelled from Cornwall, went across on the tunnel, all the way down.

We raced all week, probably three different events, as you said, a six-hour endurance, a four-hour, and then some regularity stuff.

And we all drove pack.

And we had one wiper arm come off at Stonehenge in a huge storm on the way home.

And that was our...

Not a car we prepared.

No, not a car we prepared.

But to drive them down and for all of them to come back, go to ward throughout.

Yeah, that's...

What else?

Incredible.

What other product would do that?

I'm sorry.

What a way, as you said, to get to know a product and understand and appreciate it as well, you know.

Yeah, for sure.

Just before we finish up, obviously, we mentioned at the top of the podcast, you know, about the geographical location of you guys.

It's quite unique, isn't it, really?

It feels like you're kind of down here.

I'm going to say you're on a sailing career, isn't it?

We've got to be by the water.

You know, has...

I'm sure that presents advantages and disadvantages.

You know, how have you found that over the last 30 years, really?

What's it like?

Well, because originally we were doing this thing with the left-hand driver.

I was doing this thing with the left-hand driver.

I was actually using Richard's father as my delivery driver.

So he would, you know, I'd sell...

digitally, you know, because even then I had digital pictures and stuff like that.

And if it wasn't as described, when you collect or we deliver, you can have your money back.

That was always the thing.

So we were selling stuff, or selling stuff into, you know, all around the country.

I'd saturated this market about 31 years ago, you know, in Saltash.

And then for the Europeans that were coming over, we always presented it as part of the adventure.

You know, do you want to buy your Ferrari in Milan?

Or do you want to buy it in Manchester?

I want to buy it in Milan and drive the thing home, you know?

So we present it like that.

And I think now...

We genuinely got a nationwide and worldwide base.

For the people outside of the UK, if they've got a major repair required, the shipping part of it is a small part of the cost.

The benefit is that they can do it without stress.

They know that we've got the resources to get it done.

And they've got to pay for it somewhere along the line, anyhow.

So it is a challenge.

We do ship cars up and down all the time.

But, you know, with the way the world is now, we've got the WhatsApp, we've got live video.

You know, Richard was talking about in the special works, or in the workshop, that...

we'll go down with a video camera, show people what they're looking at.

That clarity really helps it.

And of course, I think in general, people are getting more and more used to dealing off a computer, aren't they?

Yeah, without a doubt.

It's a changing way of how people are buying Porsche sports cars or living out their passions, really.

And yeah, as we said, we had the most wonderful journey down today, and I think building it into the experience makes it even more Absolutely.

Even morepleasurable.

The sun's always shining, as you found out.

Always in Cornwall.

It is.

100% record so far.

100% record.

That's how it is.

Straight through now until October.

Blue skies.

That's how it runs.

I know you guys, there's going to be a couple of changes in the showroom coming up.

It'd be lovely to visit again later this year and just see how that kind of develops here.

But it's such an incredible setup.

It's a clear credit to you both.

Thankyou very much.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, thanks on that note for sharing your...

your Porsche story with the listeners here on Nineworks Radio.

Thank you.

Cheers.

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Passion for Porsche since 1991: Williams Crawford

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Porsche 911

Jaguar Etype

3 Three Wheelers

BMW E30

Porsche Boxster

Renault Clio

Porsche 356

Porsche Cayenne

Fiat Brava

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