Review of Cotswold Motorsport by Dan Grazier from the Bristol Breakfast car meet @ Queens square....
Their main building is indeed beautiful, the one place that it reminded me of was one of the outer buildings at the Enzo Ferrari museum in Modena! Don't laugh, I'll find a pic I took there, you might agree!
But I digress slightly. I was met by Ian, who does indeed make a very good cup of tea as I had seen in the comments from previous customers! He took me around some of his cars, we had a look around the Nismo and chatted about just how meticulous Nissan are about the car. All the tyres need to have exactly the same tread depth and the wheels can't be refurbished!
There was an extremely low mileage Mercedes SL500 in a humidified storage container, a lovely Audi RS5 (with which I'm a little tempted) and an absolutely fabulous Ferrari Testarossa!
Talking to Ian was a real eye opener, this is a guy that has spent nearly 25 years buying and selling cars, specifically Porsches and Ferraris, and he really knows his stuff. Prices, costs, issues, condition, fixes, the lot. I was really impressed.
His business doesn't just buy and sell cars though. They do storage, track days, tours and a car club where you can 'swap' your car every three months! Get the car right and it's possible to have four different cars in a year and not lose any money! True....you need to be able to afford a Ferrari F430 or similar to start with, but the idea is interesting!
The attention to detail Cotswold Motorsport go to was incredible. Listening to how the cars are chosen, bought and prepared was brilliant. Not only that I got to see how they are maintain in the showroom.
I also got the chance to meet British National Superstock racer Fraser Rogers #89 who is managed by Ian! Talk about a diverse business! Fraser works there in the quiet winter months, before testing his new 1000cc ZX10 in Spain in February. He had three podiums this year on a bike with 216bhp! A figure that I thought was utterly nuts for a bike, but he said wasn't enough! Apparently next years bike will be a whole lot better!
I had a great time talking cars, something I could ramble on for hours! I'd like to thank Ian for his time. In the end I only took two pics! But do take a look at their website for some far better ones and check out their past stock, they really do pick out some great examples.