Our Story

Icon Classic Car was established to make available for hire a range of iconic classic British cars from the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s - hence our name and logo.

We are passionate about classic cars and motorsport and have had the good fortune to own, at some time: Triumph, Rover, Land Rover, Jaguar, Morgan, Mini, MG, Caterham and Ginetta.

The Icon Classic Car story began in 2012 when the team of Clarence (grandfather), Keith (father) and Andres (son) acquired a Caterham Academy car to build for Andres to race as a novice race driver in the 2012 Caterham Academy championship. At that time Keith’s small collection of classic cars comprising Triumph Stag, Mini Cooper “Monte Carlo” and classic Range Rover Vouge joined the company as the original hire fleet. The MGB Roadster and Triumph TR6 were added soon after. While the Triumph Stag was subsequently sold we also added the MGB GT "Jubilee Edition", classic Range Rover Vogue SE and more recently the Land Rover Defender and Rover SD1.

Caterham racing activities were used to promote the company and as Andres progressed through the various Caterham championships the silverware began to amass. Highlights include vice champion in 2014 Caterham Tracksport Championship with over 20 podium finishes in a 7 year career, numerous fastest laps and race victories at Silverstone and Spa. The Spa victory being accomplished in the flagship Caterham 420R series with support from Matt Blyth Motorsport.

Not content watching Andres race, Keith was a founder member of the Ginetta GRDC novice championship acquiring one of the original Ginetta G40 GRDC spec cars when first introduced in 2014. Again, the Ginetta was used to promote the company and also introduced the track day hire option. The Ginetta G40 being a road legal race car. Like the Caterham series the Ginetta has raced at all the important current and former UK F1 circuits including Donington GP, Brands Hatch GP and Silverstone GP with forays abroad to Spa and Zandvoort.

Andres completed his NVQ training as a motor mechanic to Level 2 in 2014. Clarence remains as (semi- retired) engineer (advising and assisting the company for longer than he expected!) and Keith continues to bring his passion for “classic cars” to the business.

It has not all been plain sailing. The Mini Cooper Monte Carlo was unfortunately involved in a minor accident but enough for it to be written off. Subsequently, we were able to replace the “Monte Carlo” with a very low mileage 1996 Mini Cooper, optioned with factory leather. The Triumph TR6 was driven by a young chap inappropriately and required a cylinder head rebuild (the car is a brute but needs careful handling). The Triumph Stag suffered from improper use of the folding hood mechanism (it is complicated) but otherwise gave sterling service until sold to a fellow enthusiast from Germany – our Stag being LHD and maybe better suited to continental driving on the wrong side of the road! Such are the rigors of classic car hire. The rest they say is history.

Our premises are located in Marchwood, Southampton and combine garage facilities and an office and reception area on a site where the collection of cars can be safely stored. Our intention remains to make the cars generally available for hire from the start of the season in February/March through to October/November each year with the intervening months dedicated to maintenance and refurbishment works.

We are committed to our original philosophy: To acquire and hire cars which are of a very high standard in terms of preparation and presentation and continue to maintain and improve them when we think it is desirable to do so. For this reason, we also rely on specialist garages in our neighbourhood to perform certain servicing and periodic checks including obtaining the annual MoT. For your peace of mind all cars available are comprehensively insured and come with RAC national breakdown cover.