Ant's autobodies

02/05/2026

I was given this honda xl250s tank to paint.

The customer had previously owned the bike years ago and had sold it on.

One day on ebay he came across the bike again. The exact same bike but the tank had the wrong decals.

So after a little searching I found a colour that looked close to the search images and painted it with the center stripe, applied the decals the customer supplied and then clear coated/lacquered in some nice Mipa CC14 thix.

Another beautiful job to work on.

28/03/2026

We recently completed a respray on a bike that arrived in poor condition. After media blasting, rust treatment, and some welding, the results are excellent.

While the cost of the repair exceeded the bike's market value, we understand that passion projects aren't always about financial returns.

Our goal is to help owners restore their vehicles to their former glory, or even better.

If your primary concern is the resale value of a vehicle, we may not be the right shop for you. Doing a job correctly requires significant time and resources. However, if you want your hobby projects handled with the same love and care you would provide yourself, we would love to assist you.

17/03/2026

BSA Gold Star 250 came in a solid red but was the wrong colour. It's now a candy red chosen by the customer. The red isn't exactly the same as no two bikes were apparently.

It was a fun job and one of many keeping us busy up here at . We've been blessed with some absolutely lovely jobs recently, it's always a pleasure to work on the older vehicles.

14/12/2025

Finding the colour.

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ long post 😳

My apologies, but if you've met me you'll know I like to go into detail!! It's just who I am, if you don't want to read the whole post I'm basically saying it's sometimes bloody difficult finding the right colour but we got there 😂

Disclaimer, reading any further may cause drowsiness lol.

Before any preparation started I got hold of the original colour code, Suzuki 7797 maui blue. Unfortunately for me this wasn't available on my scheme or any local suppliers. A bit more research pulled up information suggesting Suzuki ZOB as a close alternative.

I got the paint and then made a spray out card. At this point I decided to clean off some of the non original paint in the hope that I could maybe find evidence of the original colour (this isn't always possible). Luckily for me it was there and I carefully cleaned off the paint so I could check my colour card against it.

It was close but not as good as I would like (a little too dark). I then went to my scheme to mix up any cards that looked close. Again not quite good enough. After a bit more research I managed to find a scheme with the code 7977 on and ordered that as I had to see how close this would be and felt that even if it didn't match we had to get it and check.

Again the colour is close but not a perfect match. It's a little bit too green on the flop and the metallic is a little less. As we are painting the whole bike this isn't much of an issue, if we were just doing a panel then it would be quite obvious and further work would be needed.

At this point the customer came in to check that they where happy to go ahead with this colour and also check that they where happy with silver Cerakote for the silver parts (that will be in the next post). They were ✅. This is most important to us to know the customer is fully informed and happy with the process.

Getting paint to match can be a LONG process, in some cases it's a compromise against the cost when doing restorations. We could spend more time now refining the colour by tinting it. But each time this is done it requires 150g of paint to be mixed for each spray out card and then the data recorded. This is very time consuming and costly in materials. If this was more of an investment kind of vehicle then the "original colour" becomes very important for the overall value and the cost isn't as much of an issue when preserving history.

So there you have it, the behind the scenes of colour matching!!!

This bike is going to look great and it's a pleasure to have it in the shop.

03/12/2025

Got a friend or family member curios on getting involved in motorsport ?? Used to compete back in the day but want to get back involved ?? This great initiative is designed for just that, open to budding drivers and navigators of all ages training and mentoring to get you out and involved. We will be able to pair up people and help you get going. Visit the website for more info and regulations ➡️ https://www.shmc.co.uk/rally-academy/

03/12/2025

Midweek motivation 💪

Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Build YOUR dream 🔥

Have a fantastic Wednesday everyone.

30/11/2025

And there you go. All back together and clean ✅️

Love this job 👍

30/11/2025

Now just keep cutting and taking patterns.

After all the shapeing, zinc priming and welding it's then on to the zinc epoxy primer and polyurethane sealers.

Once all that's dry fill all the cavities with Dynax-s50. After all this work you want it to last and the products I use I have faith in.

Next post on you get to see it back together! Little would anyone know the work that's gone on under there!! I love it though, real satisfaction to get the job done right ✅️👍

30/11/2025

Now I have removed the paint and underseal hiding more rust I can see how big this job is. Can I give a price, not really. I can estimate off of my experience and say it's likely X amount so have that budgeted, but as I dig in behind overlapping panels I may find more rust.

Ultimately it's is an hourly rate + materials, this is the only way to properly get these jobs done that is fair on all parties. I send detailed pictures of progress and all the information of the steps I'm taking. Full transparency of the work that's being done and why.

This way the customer knows where the money is going and can see the job is done right. I also have pictures for social media to bore you with 😂

Follow

28/11/2025

You'd just have to stop and fuel up wouldn't you ⛽️

Old school garages can still be found. This stunner is in West Wellow, Hampshire.