Roger Taylor’s interest in cars dates back to the 1950’s when his father ran a garage in Bournemouth. Roger was able to acquire his first car at the age of just 13 - a 1932 Austin Seven Tourer.
On leaving school in 1962, Roger worked for his dad and served his apprenticeship with him. At the time the business specialised in car sales, and in particular dealt with air cooled Volkswagens and Porsches. Roger was involved in servicing, repairing and restoring the cars, developing his skills in bodywork repair and spraying as well as the oily bits.
At the time both Roger and his father took part in motorsport - particularly autocross and trials events. Roger’s dad built several Porsche-powered VW’s and won a number of championships with the vehicles he prepared. Roger himself was interested in VW based buggies, and has fond memories of driving them on the Cornish beaches in the flower power era.
In the early 1980’s Roger set up his own firm, primarily carrying out bodywork repairs on modern vehicles. However he gradually became more and more involved repairing and renovating classic cars of all types, but with a predominance of MG’s finding their way to the workshop.
Roger built up his business over many years, employing up to 12 people. How ever, a few years ago he scaled down his operations and established Phoenix Classic Cars Ltd, operating from a small unit at Holton Heath, on the outskirts of Poole in Dorset. Roger’s firm deals with all types of classic cars, and a wide range of work is undertaken from straight forward routine servicing to mechanical overhauls, from panel replacement to full bodywork and running gear rebuilds.
Roger is adept at producing true concours condition vehicles when required and, for example, 2004 he rebuilt from scratch a supercharged MGB which was exported to Indianapolis in the United States. When he started Phoenix Classic cars Roger took on an MGA that was little more than a pile of bits, and turned it into a gleaming vehicle for the owner to be proud of.
He enjoys his work and is fully capable of tackling any restoration work. However, he entrusts some operations to highly experienced and well respected local specialists in their own fields, hood replacement and interior refurbishments are undertaken by Barry Chappell. Major paintwork operations are also carried out by local specialists renowned for the quality of their work, Andy Merry, Wareham.
Roger prides himself on providing a friendly, helpful, personal service and many of his customers return again and again for their vehicles to be attended to by Phoenix.
These days Roger tends to concentrate on servicing and repairs, and is also actively expanding the components supply side of the business- particularly for Classic MG’s. Roger is still very much an enthusiast.
If your cherished classic is in need of attention or your MG requires spares, give Roger a call or email and he will do his best to help.
Phoenix Classic Cars Ltd: Unit C1, Hailey Centre, 46 Holton Road Trading Park, Poole, Dorset BH16 6LP, United Kingdom
Telephone: 01202 622808 Fax: 01202 622837 Mobile: 07985 31 55 24
Opening Hours: Mon-Tue/Thu-Fri 8am - 5pm Wed 8am - 1pm Sat: 8am - 4pm
