RODGER DUDDING: Personally, I like to have
things as accurate as possible, as to the way they were when the vehicle was built;
it’s part of its charm and its history.
COMM: Car enthusiast - Rodger Dudding – has amassed the biggest collection of classic
cars in Britain and, quite possibly, the world.
RODGER DUDDING: I suppose, it really kicked off back in 1968-69.
COMM: Having made his fortune through inventing
a successful ticketing machine, he embarked on a mission to preserve historical cars.
RODGER DUDDING: As an engineer, I can look
upon a motorcar, in many cases, as three-dimensional art.
It doesn’t have to be an expensive range of car.
It could be a very small range of car.
RODGER DUDDING: Well this is obviously the
beginning of our reception area and the door in front of me leads us into the ground floor
of our Aladdin’s cave or, as some of my chums call it, ‘Dudding’s toy cupboard’.
RODGER DUDDING: I suppose our collection on
an average day is probably north of about £40 million.
We have been offered astronomical
sums of money for various of our cars.
COMM: Rodger boasts more than 350 vehicles in his collection and keeps them in a fully
staffed purpose built facility on the outskirts of London.
RODGER DUDDING: I used to do quite a lot of
work on the cars myself. It has now got so large that time doesn’t exist. So, we now
have a full-time, highly qualified motor engineer; not just a mechanic, he can make things.
RODGER DUDDING: We aim that every three months,
according to the weather, our cars would go out and be driven around the block,
do about 5 or 10 miles, to keep all the oils moving, the suspension moving, etc. We also employ
full-time, a car cleaner which is a non-stop job for him. When he gets around having cleaned
the last one, it’s time to start cleaning the first one again.
COMM: The collection features cars from as
far back as 1911, from race-cars pre-dating the Second World War to limited edition
luxury vehicles. Rodger’s collection truly caters to all motor heads.
RODGER DUDDING: This little white single-seater
racing car here has got an Austin engine in it, so I phoned David Morgan, my chum who
restored this and is this authority and written books on Austin motor cars. I said, “David,
I've just bought the little single-seater white racing car and it’s got an Austin engine.
There is the shell of a tortoise, upon which is painted the face of a rabbit with big whiskers
and apparently it’s known as the White Rabbit.” On the other end of the phone was, “What?
The White Rabbit, Austin?” Yes, I said, “*BEEP* hell”. The car has been lost for
about 30 years. It has raced at Monaco; it’s raced all over.
RODGER DUDDING: The Aston Martin Lagonda,
you love them or you hate them. And I’m now up to 24. And you probably have to be
nutty to own one, to be taken away to the lunatic asylum if you have got three or more.
So I don’t know where that positions me.
COMM: As well as being an avid collector of cars, Mr. Dudding also has an impressive array
of motorbikes.
RODGER DUDDING: Well the collection we have here is mainly, mainly British motorcycles and
this is the only two wheel vehicle in the world, permitted to be badged Bentley.
But again you have to be bonkers enough to buy these things. To me, it’s just history.
RODGER DUDDING: If people ask me my most valuable car,
then it’s not monetary terms if it’s strictly emotional, this is my late father’s
1952 split windscreen Morris Minor.
COMM: Rodger rents out his incredible cars for filming and special events and his next
project will see him build a seven million pound state of the art storage facility to
house his ever-expanding collection.
RODGER DUDDING: All the cars high-end? No, to me they are all high-end because I love
them just as much as each other.