We took a holiday in Spain this year. Our home base was the beautiful Costa del Sol town of Estepona and that is the location of Coast Classics (www.coast-classics.com).
The owner, Andreas Ullstein, was on hand to give us a tour of his great facility. He has a group of units in an industrial section with automobile businesses of almost every kind. But as for classics, Andreas has that market all to himself. In one unit he does repairs and maintenance on customer cars. Next door he stores special exotics and next to that is his restoration facility. In one section he has a machine shop to create parts that just can’t be replaced any other way.
Andreas moved to Spain from Germany about 20 years ago and now his expertise is known all over Spain and Europe. I contacted him before we went to Spain and made an appointment for a tour – and once there, discovered his location was about 10 minutes away from the seafront where we were staying.
He showed us a number of cars that are his – plus others he stores and maintains for customers from all over. I wasn’t prepared for the number of North American cars in his shop – Chevys, Mustangs, Corvettes, MGs, T-Birds and some Hot Rods. He admits though, that his personal favourites are Pontiac, Mercedes and Cadillac. Andreas has a backlog of restoration work. One car waiting in line is a totally stripped down 1985 Porsche which spent 6 months under water and he says its owner has allowed 6 years for the restoration. Another, a ‘55 Thunderbird, looks good from a distance but needs a total restoration that is planned to take two years.
A couple of his 6 mechanics were working on the electrics on a correct light blue ‘50 Cadillac convertible when we were there.
Another – a ‘65 Mustang Fastback, was up on the hoist getting new rear brakes.
He has a MG C that was a British Metropolitan police car and it still has the police radio in the glove box. Another car stored for a customer is a 1970 Chevrolet Impala Convertible with the famous 454 cubic inch engine. That customer visits Estepona and takes his car out for two weeks every year. This one was parked next to one of my personal favourites – a ’52 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe Convertible.
Many of the cars Andreas has were located in the USA, Los Angeles where he has an office and a manager to find special cars he is looking for. He points out that Estepona – a town of about 35,000 has 300 classics registered and when added to Marbella the neighbouring town, east along the Mediterranean with a population of 135,000, the total grows to 700.
His website is really the best way to look at the Coast Classics company and see the vehicles Andreas has for sale. You can even see and hear Andreas talking about his terrific company.
We talked about the number of classics available in Canada too. Andreas is under the impression that Canadian sourced vehicles are subject to rust issues that just makes them too costly to restore. That 1970 Impala with the 454 did come from Ontario though. So, I’m thinking we need to discuss this subject further!
In his experience however, even in Europe and parts of Spain there are places to avoid when buying an old vehicle to restore – which is why he still prefers cars from dry US states.
www.coast-classics.com – Check it out !