Some of the most difficult things in the history of mankind were done by people too stupid to realize that they were impossible. People get these ideas and if they do it and they follow it through, they’ve achieved something that no one else has ever come up with.
-Andy Saunders
Andy Saunders created his first-ever custom car before he was old enough to hold a driver’s license. At just 15 years old in Poole on the South Coast of England, Saunders took to car customization like a Mustang with a full gas tank takes to an open road. He unearthed a preternatural ability to bring out-of-the-box, creative concepts to life and push the bounds of what a car can be.
Saunders, the son of an electrician, was raised in his dad’s forecourt, fixing up and selling secondhand cars. For over four decades, Saunders has produced some of the most innovative and imaginative automobile interpretations the industry has ever seen, from Picasso’s Citroën (see above) unveiled at the 2007 Goodwood Festival of Speed to the historic X-2000 to the world record-breaking Claustrophobia. Saunders’ designs and convention-busting point of view will have you trading in your silver Prius for a retro-fixer upper someone’s offloading on Craigs List. Or maybe that’s just me …
I spoke with the car magician a few weeks ago to learn more about his road to custom car supremacy. Our conversation is below (lightly edited for clarity and length).ad to custom car supremacy. Our conversation is laid out below! (Edited for clarity and length.)
How did you first get into the world of custom cars? When did you start tinkering with them and letting your imagination run wild?
When I was a kid in the 70s, the custom car scene in England was vast. I don’t know what about custom cars mesmerized me, but I just went, Wow, that’s my dream to have a custom car.
My first custom car came about when I was 15. At school, I had to do a 3,000-meter cross-country run, and long story short, I virtually collapsed. I couldn’t do it. I had palpitations, which went on for probably two and a half days; they just didn’t stop. I went to the hospital, and subsequently, I learned I was born with a hole in the heart.
I had to go in for specialist attention, and the chap said, “For you to have any life after the age of about 25, you’re going to have to have open-heart surgery.” I was so petrified and so were my parents. I had a year before the operation. My dad had a little forecourt where he sold secondhand cars, and he took in a black Escort with a white stripe down the side and a fiberglass flip front and said, “We’re going to build a custom car.” So that’s how the first one came about; it was for everyone to focus on outside of this impending doom, to give positivity.
Neither of us knew what we were doing, but we worked on it all the time and finished it very quickly. At the very first show it went to, it won runner-up custom over 350 other cars, and then we went to a show the following weekend, and it won again. The chap who gave out the prize said, “This young man really needs to have eyes kept on him, because he’s obviously got a lot of talent.”
Saunders’ first custom car, built with his dad and Bird Puller.
It sounds like you were a sort of custom car prodigy. Were there any indications of your creative ability before then?
I was quite creative. But I didn’t realize how controlled I was by my dad. I wish I had gone to art school, but I didn’t because I loved working with my dad. I loved cars and working with my dad on his forecourt; at 15, I could spray cars better than the professional sprayer. I just worked with him all the time. I would come home from school and work with him until seven at night rather than do homework. My interest in creativity was funneled into work because that’s what I wanted to do.
Deja, photo credit Mark Dixon
I’ve worked most of my life, and I like work. Every car on my website, even the commissions I’ve done for the big companies, have all been done outside my daily job. For 41 years, I ran a service center and an MOT station, so I did all my cars in the evenings and weekends. I love work. It’s funny; I’m retired and can’t tell you how little time I’ve got. I have a new project in the garage, which has been there for six months, and I’ve managed to spend ten days on it. If I’d have been running the garage and running around, doing this, that, and the other, I’d have built it by now. I can’t work out what’s happened to time!
Where does your knack for funky and unique-looking cars come from?
Back in England in the 70s, we had companies like Jensen Interceptor and Gilburn; all these little, small-time companies were making cars. Occasionally, you saw them on the forecourts, which excited me. Car sales sites now are so boring. There’s the silver Audi, the black Range Rover, the black Audi, the silver Range Rover. There’s no choice! They look the same! They’re all ugly!
Some have described your custom cars as “controversial.” I’m curious: what aspect of your work has been controversial?
I seem to upset car clubs very easily. If I get hold of a car, like a Volvo, and the Volvo Owners Club come to find out about it, they don’t want me fiddling with it.
What’s your workshop setup like? Are you working entirely alone? Do you have a trusted team of people to help you?
All of them are on my own. I design everything myself, and I build everything myself, shape-wise. When it comes to finishing, I used to do my own paintwork, but I stopped that with the opening of two-pack paint because I didn’t have the facilities. I haven’t got the room, with only a double garage behind my house. I always have someone do the interior for me because I can’t use a sewing machine.
Do you have a favorite car you’ve worked on or a project you’re proudest of?
One is Claustrophobia. I bought that car when it was on its way to the scrapyard and paid ten pounds for it. I had this ridiculous idea, and I thought if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, I haven’t lost anything.
Back in the ’60s, there was a man called Neville Trickett, and he made a car called the Mini Spring. It was a mini that was roof-chopped about three inches, and then they cut it in half around the middle—called sectioning—and then lowered the body, but they only lowered it about two and a half inches because they still wanted it as a road usable car. I thought if I were to do the same to Claustrophobia but take out as much as I could get out of every car, I would have a stupidly low car.
As soon as I finished it, it went for a photo session for a magazine feature. They had me sit in it for the cover photo; I had my arm out the window, my head through the roof, and my fingers touching the ground. The title was: “Claustrophobia, the Lowest Car in the World.” The magazine made that up, but about three weeks later, I got a phone call from the Guinness Book of World Records office asking me to send them a picture with a measuring stick next to it, which I did. It was 34 and a half inches tall. Then they contacted me again and said, “We’re going to come down,” and they sent down the official chap. He said, “This is officially the lowest car in the world.”
When I was a little boy, I used to be absolutely fascinated by the Guinness Book of World Records. If there was one thing that I wanted to do, it was to be in the Guinness Book of World Records. I don’t know why that is. My gran used to buy me the new edition every Christmas, and I loved it. As if Claustrophobia getting in isn’t the best thing that could have ever happened, they do a smaller version called Guinness Book of World Records: Extraordinary Records, and on the front cover, there’s Concord, George Michael, Bob Geldof, and Claustrophobia; it’s actually in the collage on the front cover of that book. Bloody hell!
What’s your favorite aspect of bringing a new (old) car to life?
I sometimes wonder if my workshop has become some time travel equipment. Because I would walk in on a Saturday morning, walk out later that weekend, and find out that I’ve been in there three months. On a large project, it’s nothing to do 12 hours of physical work without stopping. You lose time! You lose time, and it’s fabulous. There isn’t anything more exciting in my life. Nothing has ever been more exciting than when it’s just flowing, and you don’t know your name, you don’t know what time it is, you don’t know if you’re hungry or not, you’re just there, and you’re one with it. It’s a fulfillment that so few people enjoy. It’s really exciting.