Thomas Marks Specialist Cars
Looking after your Modern Classic
About Us
Here at Thomas Marks Specialist Cars, we are passionate about competition and homologation cars from the 70’s onwards, driven by a lifelong interest in competition vehicles from this era. Our first love is Group B, but 20 years of experience in motorsport and specialist road car engineering attracts us to most things that are a little different!
How We Work
We pride ourselves on listening to what a customer wants, but we are also happy to start with an honest assessment of what needs doing. Once we agree a scope, we will stick to that, providing regular updates as work progresses but also highlighting any additional issues as we go. It’s often difficult to give a fixed price for this kind of work, but we enjoy what we do and are fellow enthusiasts and owners, so we take a balanced view on time charged for things like spares sourcing and collection/delivery, Vs deeply technical or subcontract work. One thing is certain, you will never be charged for work you didn’t know about or agree to, and we always strive to avoid any unpleasant surprises!
Our Specialized Services
Recommissioning
As a generals rule, cars, like any other complex machine, run and work much better when they are used. Indeed, storing a car for extended periods can cause all sorts of issues. Fuel goes stale, looses octane and generally changes into the sort of liquid you wouldn’t want in your car. Modern fuels just make this worse. Typical consequences of this are varnish deposition, rubber degradation, injector (or carb jet) clogging, filter breakdown, etc. Old fuel system components containing perishable parts have no place on a high value car – the risk of serious fire or even total loss is just too great.
Brake fluid crystallises over time and absorbs moisture, causing master cylinders and brake caliper pistons to stick and internal components to rust. Brake fluid also breaks down rubber components, such as hoses and seals, causing them to leak. A slow leak of brake fluid can lead to secondary damage to paintwork, which often leads to significant rework to rectify. And all of this is over and above the obvious safety concerns.
The list goes on, bearings, bushes, belts, wiring, all of this suffers with age and can significantly reduce the reliability of an otherwise amazing piece of motoring history.
The good news is that almost all of these are relatively simple to fix. Finding parts for some of this can often take longer than the time taken to fit them, and sometimes there is no option but to modify and/or use something else, or reverse engineer it and get it reproduced.
Here at Thomas Marks we can take care of all of of this, returning your specialist car to the standard it deserves.
Servicing and maintenance
Many of these older cars are relatively simple in concept, but the work required to keep them running is becoming something of a lost art outside of the specialist network. Here at Thomas Marks we can undertake all servicing work from a major engine out job to an annual or pre-event service and thorough check-over. Light cosmetic work, fixing stuff that’s stopped working and getting these cars through an MOT are all services we are happy to provide.
Other Services
We can offer repairs to existing parts or build new in most types of composite, having a small autoclave and resin infusion capability, up to and including repairing or reproducing typical body panels. We can also repair and restore cored composite panels in grp, carbon/kevlar and aluminium.
Wiring loom diagnosis, repair or build can all be tackled in house, from tracking down and fixing intermittent faults to replacing or overhauling obsolete or life expired components.
We are happy to consider underbody and non A-surface repairs and paintwork as part of a wider project scope.
We work with a network of highly skilled specialists, so things like design work, machining, specialist fabrication, etc can all be accommodated within a scope of work.
jason@thomasmarks.com
Phone
+44 7734 793264