Classic Investments
Kiwi Stephen Bell relocated to Colorado when he was 18 to find snow-skiing glory. Along the way, however, he also discovered a talent for unearthing forgotten European sports cars and fixing them up. Working from the dirt-floor, single-car garage at his Denver home, Bell began buying and restoring British sports cars like Austin-Healeys, Triumphs and Jaguar XKEs for European clients in 1989. By the early 1990s his fledgling business had grown to the point where he formalized it into a company, Classic Investments, and moved his operation into a proper, dedicated facility.
With the ensuing years, Bell and his staff unearthed literally thousands of European sports cars, harking from the 1940s through to the 1970s, for clients around the world. As those years went on Classic Investments grew into ever-larger facilities to accommodate the increased number of full restorations that it was in turn asked to take on.
Today, Classic Investments occupies an 8,000-sq.ft. facility in Englewood, Colorado, employing half a dozen skilled craftsmen who are capable of performing nearly all restoration work, in-house, with the exception of plating and some trim. According to Bell, “We can normally handle about a half a dozen major restorations at one time, in this facility.” The quality of the work is reflected in the many concours awards that have been garnered over the years including: a first in class at the 2007 Cavallino Classic with a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB (featured in Vintage Roadcar, Jan. 2013); a class win for a 1959 Porsche Roadster at the 2009 Porsche Parade; and a class win for a Maserati Ghibli at last year’s Santa Fe Concorso.
In addition to Classic Investments’ restoration work, Bell and his staff are also still actively involved in the discovery, buying and selling of cars, with 40-50 cars moving through the facility, on average, each year. Bell adds proudly, “Being the big ‘Barn Find’ car hunter that I am, I’ve bought close to 3,000 collector cars over the years, and I’d say that 50 percent of those were bought out of barns where they had been sitting for 20-30 years, and were purchased from their original owners.”
With so many years of experience, Classic Investments has built a strong reputation in the classic car community for the location and restoration of a number of classic marques, including Ferrari, Maserati, early Porsches, as well as Aston Martins and Jaguars. Yet, despite so much of his time now occupied with these more high-end marques, Bell still finds himself drawn to the Austin-Healeys and Triumphs that helped him get his start—25 years ago, on that Colorado dirt floor!
CONTACT INFO:
- Classic Investments
- 3940 S. Mariposa St.
- Englewood, CO 80110
- Office-303.388.9788
- [email protected]
- www.classicinvest.com
