Calder Coachworks · Wilmslow · Established 1998

The repair you cannot find afterwards.

Accident repair, refinishing and restoration for prestige and classic cars, in one Cheshire workshop since 1998. We are approved by insurers and owned by none of them, which means the assessment you get is ours rather than theirs.
Request an assessmentSee what a finish is made of
28 yrs
Under one roof
ΔE ≤ 0.4
Measured colour match
Lifetime
Paint guarantee

What comes through the door

Accident repair

Structural and cosmetic, for every insurer and for private clients. Jig-checked, measured against manufacturer data, and certified on completion. We will tell you when a car is worth repairing and when, honestly, it is not.

Refinishing & correction

Colour mixed on site and read off your panel rather than off a code. Machine correction and coating for cars that were never damaged, only dulled — the most-requested work we do that no insurer ever pays for.

Restoration paintwork

Bare-metal respraying for classics, with the panel gaps set before a drop of colour is mixed. Long jobs, quoted per car after inspection, and photographed weekly so you can watch it happen.

What a finish is actually made of

A repainted panel is four layers and about a tenth of a millimetre. Nearly all the difference between a good one and a poor one is in the two you will never see. Take each in turn.
Total build ≈ 120 µm
Figures are this workshop’s own build specification, gauge-checked on the panel before the car is handed back and recorded on the job card.

One workshop, four people, no subcontracting

Ian Calder opened the unit at Alderley Works in 1998 with a compressor, a secondhand booth and a rule he has not broken since: the person who mixes the colour is the person who sprays it. Twenty-eight years and something over nineteen thousand cars later there are four of us, two booths and the same rule. Nothing is sent out — not the paint, not the structural work, not the polishing.
© ConcoursHomeThe WorkColour Matching