CAR S.O.S Returns for a Sixth Season: A Conversation with Master Mechanic Fuzz Townshend | The Fan Carpet Ltd • The Fan Carpet: The RED Carpet for FANS • The Fan Carpet: Fansites Network • The Fan Carpet: Slate • The Fan Carpet: Theatre Spotlight • The Fan Carpet: Arena • The Fan Carpet: International

CAR S.O.S Returns for a Sixth Season: A Conversation with Master Mechanic Fuzz Townshend


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BRAND NEW SIXTH SEASON OF THE CAR RESTORATION SHOW WITH HEART FEATURING MIND-BLOWING MAKEOVERS AND HEART WRENCHING REAL-LIFE STORIES

Premieres on National Geographic Thursday 8th March at 8pm

Get revved up and ready for the return of master mechanic Fuzz Townshend and parts-blagging petrol-head Tim Shaw as the talented duo unleash a brand new, Season 6 of their hugely popular car restoration series, Car S.O.S., onto our screens.

Premiering on National Geographic at 8pm on Thursday 8th March 2018 and with a special guest appearance in the opening episode from actor James Nesbitt (Stan Lee’s Lucky Man, Cold Feet), this new season is one not to be missed!

Featuring some of the most difficult car makeovers Fuzz and Tim have ever encountered and heart-breaking real-life stories that devastate the entire crew, including the sad death of a contributor at the time of filming their episode, the sixth instalment of this much-loved series is a heartwarming, inspirational rollercoaster ride of emotions.

Making motoring dreams come true, Tim and Fuzz continue their undercover mission to save corroding classic cars from their unsuspecting owners, and restore them to their former glory, after a swift pit-stop at the Car S.O.S. garage…

 

 

Car SOS has been very popular, how do you feel about it’s growing popularity?

Well, I think it’s excellent. When we started out we didn’t know what to expect, it’s all down to the viewers really but it’s wonderful it’s become so popular and great that it seems to have established itself as, you know, as a favourite with car lovers the world over.

So, we still love making it and the best thing about it is, of course, we’re doing other people’s cars, people’s cars that they own, that they love but they’ve not been able to finish them for one reason or another, it’s great to be able to get involved and then, when we reveal them, the family has a good old time, everybody knows the recipient of the cars, their families and their friends really care about them and we walk off into the sunset to leave them to enjoy their newly restored vehicles. So, it’s great, it’s a real pleasure that it’s captured people’s imagination.

 

Absolutely. For yourself, have you always been a car enthusiast?

I have yeah. You know, I started working at my cousins garage up in Scotland when I was probably about 10 or 11 and, you know, just used to do that on holidays making the tea, making the number plates, being the fire watch while the cars where being welded, buckets of water, up in the foot wells of cars, and you know, just started messing about then, and then I got myself an old banger of a car when I was 15 and messed about with that, messed it up, didn’t get it right and then did my apprenticeship, you know I’ve worked with motor vehicles in a professional basis since I was 16 really I suppose.

 

Okay, great. Are there any cars that you haven’t featured on the show that you’d love to have and get your hands on?

Oh gosh there are so many, so many cars out there it would be hard to pick one. I mean, people often say “are you running out of cars to do?” but there are so many thousands of different types of car that have been built over the years that we’re really not stuck for things to choose. I mean, really, it’s down to knowing which cars have been nominated in the first place, we have literally received thousands of nominations so the world’s our oyster, we can pick cars, collate the type of cars series after series.

So there are loads of cars I’d like to do but personally I’d like to do, I don’t know, an Edwardian race car or something from the early part of the 20th century, something that’s a real animal from the dawn of the motoring era that would be great. I equally enjoy the challenge of more modern classics, things built in the 1990s and even the early 2000s because now it’s quite a long time ago.

 

 

Speaking of challenges, can you talk about any challenges that you faced when taking on a restoration?

Oh gosh, well yeah. First of all the worst thing that we find in general when we come into a car that we’re taking on is when the car has been badly repaired previously, so we did a Mercedes in series 5, a Mercedes Benz and we decided to strip the body back and what we got back from the strippers when it was acid dipped and completely reduced to metal was we found over 120 patches brutally let into the body of this beautiful car. So we had to rectify all of the poor repairs that had been done before.

It meant that we had to go right back to the very core of the vehicle which meant it was just a massive job, we’re talking 1600 hours or something was spent on it and that’s a lot of time to spend on a car especially when we’re having to turn round 10 cars in six months, it’s a big ask really.

 

I can imagine. So other than that one, was that one of the worst experiences that you’ve had with over 120 patches to redo?

Yeah I think that was one of the worst. In this series of Car SOS we did an MGA which had been towed into a barn in the 1970s and there it sat for 40 years and even when it was towed into the barn it was a wreck of a car, so that provides huge challenges because there’s not a lot to work with when you start, you have to go back, you have to go into the core and try to find a few of the good bits to make a start really.

 

Right, okay. What can fans look forward to during this series?

Okay, well for lovers of modern classics we’ve done a couple of 1990s cars which really addresses the modern classics enthusiasts. We did two 90s cars, two 80s cars but also we’ve mixed up the nationalities as well, so we’ve done a couple of French cars, two Italian cars I think this year, so really we try and mix it up so enthusiasts across the board, not just in the UK, but around the world see cars, some of them they’re familiar with and others that are just interesting maybe because they’ve not seen them before, this year we try and make sure we cover a broad spectrum of enthusiasts desires really.

Okay. Speaking of that, is there anything that you found out during a restoration that you didn’t know before?

Yeah absolutely loads, tonnes and tonnes of stuff. I mean, I found out that seemingly simple two stroke engines on microcars are nothing of the sort and in fact I’ve got a new found respect for people who work on things like motor scooters and such like, because actually although they seem to be simple machines they’re brilliantly engineered and fiendishly difficult to restore.

 

Okay. And obviously, just before I let you go, you seem to get on quite well with Tim (Shaw). How is that relationship grown and evolved over the years?

It’s great. We’re both very different characters sort of thing, he’s very, he’s a bit of wayward child I would say, but I think our differences are our strengths really and yeah we get on great, we’re not scripted, the shows not scripted at all, everything that you hear on the show is what Tim and I come up with on our own, we don’t work to anybodies script or anything like that, there’s nothing written for us we just have a little confab and go “okay let’s say it like this, let’s go in and talk like this” and so it’s completely natural and we get on great.

 

 

Car S.O.S premieres Thursday March 8 at 8pm on National Geographic

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