WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY BEEN following the evolution of the SS120 project at Finch Restorations. Finch is a boutique restoration, customisation and bespoke vehicle business in the picturesque Adelaide Hills.
Finch’s first SS120 car, an open-top twoseater, has recently commenced testing and engineering at Goolwa aerodrome south of Adelaide, and will soon be performing endurance road-tests before being delivered to its excited Queensland owner.
Finch Restorations was first established by Ray Finch in 1965. In the 1990s, Ray took on a personal challenge to build a replica of an S.S. Jaguar 100 - the iconic Jaguar considered to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing cars of the 1930s. His S.S. Jaguar 100 replicas garnered acclaim for their high level of authenticity. He won an Australian Concours d’Elegance with his first S.S. Jaguar 100 replica, and even received a congratulatory letter from the head of the Ford Motor Company, Edsel Ford III. The Ford Motor Company was then the owner of Jaguar.
Ray Finch retired in 1999, and the Finch Restorations business is now owned by Peter Roberts, a Naval Architect, who for 35 years was previously working on luxury motor yachts, submarines, destroyers and patrol boats.
Peter has built the business into an artisan workforce of two dozen with old-school skills in metal and timber coachbuilding, panel-beating, spraypainting, mechanical systems, engine-building, auto-electrical, carburettor repairs, dyno-tuning, interior design and specialist parts procurement.
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