Meet the specialist: Vintage & Classic Shock Absorbers

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Sourcing good-quality replacement parts can be one of the greatest difficulties in keeping an historic vehicle on the road but, fortunately, no matter what pre-war vehicle you drive, repairing or replacing shock absorbers should never be a problem thanks to the work of Vintage & Classic Shock Absorbers. The company was founded in 1995 by Graham Brown, who had been restoring shock absorbers since the 1980s. Graham is hoping to spend more time on his own cars in the future and is now looking to hand the shock absorber side of things onto his family. His sons and daughter have already inherited his interest in vintage cars and now his sons, Tim and Michael, are taking over the reins. Their sister Jenny, incidentally, runs JB Vintage Spares, which stocks a range of ignition coils, distributors and other electrical parts.

Michael lives near Croydon, Surrey, and is now largely responsible for the side of the business that produces Hartford-type friction shock absorbers, while Tim lives in Malvern, Worcestershire, and deals mainly with lever-arm shock absorbers for cars of the 1930s onwards.

Talking to Michael in his workshop, he explains how the business started. "My dad had some shocks rebuilt and they failed very quickly, but he decided 'I've got to have something,' so he took them apart and realized he could fix them. He replaced the seals and they worked. His brother-in-law had a similar car which had leaking shock absorbers as well, so he fixed them and then everybody else in the Riley Register heard 'Graham fixes shock absorbers.'"

Indeed, Rileys have been the backbone of Graham and Michael's motoring lives. Graham's first car was a 1934 Wolseley Nine which was given to him by his older brother after it was hit up the rear. Graham repaired the damage and still owns the car today. His second car, which he bought himself, was a Riley, and in the 1970s he joined the V.S.C.C. to race a Riley Treen Special, which he also still owns, along with an Adelphi, Falcon and Lynx, plus a Healey Elliott for good measure.

Michael started motoring with a post-war car, though. "When I was 16, we inherited a Daimler Dart which hadn't run for a long time, so my dad and I spent two years rebuilding the engine. I started using it when I was 18—it was quite a good 18-year-old's car! When I was 22, we got hold of a Riley Nine chassis and axles that had been side on in someone's hedge for 30 years. I rebuilt the engine with my dad and got the chassis and engine back together, then Tim and I built the body with a steel tube frame, as we knew we'd be trialling it."

Michael has also held on to both cars, which are in refreshingly patinated condition, although life with a young family has curtailed his trialling activities of late. But let us not diverge from the matter at hand, which is the supply of shock absorbers to the vintage-car world. As demand grew for Graham's shock absorbers, he started having new parts made while also building up a stock of original items. This was going on a good 10 years or so before he started V.C.S.A. as a full-time business in 1995.

Eventually, the business reached its present-day comprehensiveness. No matter what car you have, as long as it has friction shock absorbers, or Luvax, Girling or Armstrong lever arm shocks, V.C.S.A. should be able to either recondition them or supply brand-new ones to the original patterns. In his workshop, Michael assembles new shock absorbers from the components he has had made, machining them to shape and making sure the wooden friction discs are well-soaked in a bath of oil before they go together.

He not only remanufactures all types of Hartford shocks for cars and motorcycles, but also caters for vehicles with shock absorbers by Bosch, Repusseau and Siata, which were generally made under Hartford patents, though they have their own cover plate designs. It is interesting to note their superficial differences in style - Michael places an early Bosch one, which is plainly finished but solidly made of thick brass, next to a 1930s Siata one which is as decorative as it is functional.

Having started working alongside his father in 1999 and joined him full-time in 2002, Michael knows friction shock absorbers inside-out. He has also witnessed the business grow and grow. "Back in the '90s," he says, "it would get busier in winter with people taking their cars off the road and be quieter in summer, but over the last 10 or 15 years it seems to have been constant."

Michael now works from his garden, where his workshop is compact but comprehensively equipped, with a work bench and machine tools along one side while draws full of shock absorber parts line another. In one corner is a particularly interesting curio, a demonstration model for a Hartford adjustable shock absorber which would probably have been used by a high-end car dealership to impress prospective customers.

Michael cautions that some other makers of shock absorbers use old tooling where the tolerances are not always excellent, so he takes pride in the fact that he machines everything himself to precise tolerances, and the quality of his work is surely reflected in the steady custom which keeps the Brown family very busy.

Tim has recently come on board, so Graham can pass on the knowledge for restoring and making hydraulic shock absorbers, although much of it is second nature having grown up with the business, helping on the family stand at the Beaulieu Autojumble for as long as he can remember. Graham has supplied reproduction Luvax Type A shocks made from steel billet for many years, Tim is continuing this and a batch of the larger Luvax Type B are in pre-production in his workshop. CNC machining is outsourced, with the units then assembled in house, adding to the stocks of original and new old stock parts on offer. Many of the original Luvax were made from Mazak, the unbreakable steel units are identical in every respect other than material, so are a perfect mix of originality and reliability.

No matter where you are in the world, V.C.S.A. will ship to you, so if you have any need for reconditioned or replacement shock absorbers, why not give them a try? Call 020 8651 5347 or visit www.vintageandclassicshockabsorbers.co.uk for more information.

Words and photographs: Zack Stiling
 

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