KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Mike Hawthorn was World Champion when Dick Crosthwaite began working on Bugattis, back when parts were still available from Molsheim. After joining legendary toolmaker and restoration engineer John Gardiner to found Crosthwaite and Gardiner in the sixties, the firm has handled every type of Bugatti bar the Royale.
Having acquired original factory drawings, patterns and spares in addition to remanufacturing our own over the years, we now hold the largest stock of Bugatti parts in the world.
As our reputation grew, we began manufacturing components for other famous racing marques and eventually, complete engines, including the Coventry Climax, Maserati ‘Birdcage’ and Jaguar D-Type and Lightweight E-Type units we still produce today.
In the 1960s, Crosthwaite and Gardiner became the first to offer a full professional race preparation service for historic racers, such as Neil Corner and Patrick Lindsay. Running the Mercedes W125 at Monaco was among the many highlights, along with preparing the Brooklands record-holding Napier Railton, Prince Chula’s ERA 'Remus', the last front-engined GP Ferrari, the sole BRM P25 and countless 250F Maseratis.
Racing being our raison d’être, C&G stepped further into the limelight in the seventies to run Alan de Cadenet’s entries for the Le Mans 24 Hours - so effectively that we finished third in ’76, much to the consternation of the far better resourced Ferrari, Matra and Renault works teams.
Later, our meticulous restoration of the 1939 Mercedes W154 and three Auto Union D-Type GP cars led Audi to commission recreations of all their iconic 1930s racers, including the AVUS streamliner.
We have since built a portfolio of high profile one-offs, such as the Dymaxion car for Norman Foster.
By investing for decades in the tooling and information to execute such projects to reference standards, we’ve accumulated tens of thousands of original and CAD drawings, and thousands of sandcasting patterns.
When Ollie Crosthwaite, a qualified toolmaker and historic racer in his own right, was appointed MD in 2008, he embraced the potential of new generation digital technologies to boost performance and efficiency further still. As a result, today we run one of the most advanced machine shops in the business.
For nearly half a century, our name has been a magnet for engineering talent, attracting the brightest and best to join our team.
They do so because, like all of us at C&G, they enjoy being part of the world’s best at what we do.