I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

We had a poke around Crossley and Webb and Sons in Cape Town - both are treasure troves of automotive exotica, and one has a built-in coffee shop...
I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

Having spent the yesterday evening biffing around Cape Town using either tatty Toyotas via Uber or my own two legs, the Brooklands Green Metallic Bentley Azure waiting for me is a sight for sore eyes. Particularly given where it’s taking me.

Top down on a beautiful South African summer’s day, it’s a damn fine way to travel. But the cars waiting for me at the end of the short trip across town make the Azure look as exotic as a Ford Mondeo.

I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

We’re heading to Crossley and Webb, a company which dubs itself “motoring investment specialists.” In other words, if you want a valuable car restored, serviced, stored or sold around here, they’re the ones to call. Founded in 2013 by Gareth Crossley and Bryan Webb, it’s a relatively young company, but one that’s already making waves.

The first stop is Webb and Sons. Technically a separate business to C&W run by Richard Webb - Bryan’s son - and Alex Dunford, it sits in an industrial unit you’d easily walk straight past without even knowing what’s inside. And there are some jaw-dropping machines in here.

I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

The smell of rich-running classic petrol engines clings to the air here, providing a brief distraction from the metal littering the workshop floor. To my left, a Lotus Elan gracefully sitting on a lift. To my right is an Aston Martin DBS - the only fuel-injected example of its type, I’m told - a Lamborghini 350 GT and a Lamborghini Countach.

“No one else in South Africa does anything close to us in terms of scale,” Alex tells me, adding that “most specialise in one brand, whereas we’re quite diverse.” Diverse to a point, though - generally the team only deals with European cars. The sole non-European car here is a C3 Corvette, and that’s being worked on as a favour.

I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

It’s the British cars that dominate though - particularly Jaguars (particularly E-Types) and Astons. “We’re the only workshop in the southern hemisphere that has five classic Aston Martins,” Alex tells me.

Upstairs is where the really intensive work takes place, including chassis straightening and full resprays, where yet more unicorns are in various states of completion. In all, Webb & Sons has 26 cars on its books for 2018, from only a handful of collectors, and that’s the way they want it to stay. “You get to understand each collector and what’s important to them,” Alex says. It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of the cars here are for Bryan Webb’s own collection, making the workshop an embodiment of his personal tastes.

I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

Walking over the road to Crossley & Webb itself, I bump into Bryan, quickly discovering the rationale behind his choices. “For me it’s trying to find the cars I aspired to buy when I was at an impressionable age. I lived very close to Aston Martin, and I was forever going past there and seeing all these beautiful DB4s, 5s and 6s parked outside.”

Non-automotive work drew Bryan out to South Africa in the early 1980s, where he remained until retirement in 2012. He’s clearly not one to sit still, since in 2013, Crossley & Webb was born just a year later.

I Visited The World's Best Coffee Stop For Petrolheads

“If you went to buy a classic car [in South Africa in 2013], it was a case of: there’s the car for sale, you can take it to X, Y or Z to get it restored. We want to change that - we want to become a one-stop shop,” Bryan explains. Following a false start that involved buying up an existing business, the facilities you see here were set up, quickly making a compelling case to local car collectors.

Here, cars are sold, stored (a few cars have been here since opening without the owners ever taking them out), serviced and detailed. As with the cars in Webb & Sons, you can’t help but wonder how many of each example are in the country, and how the hell they got here. Surely there can’t be more than a handful of Maserati Meraks in South Africa? What about that Plymouth Roadrunner? Excuse me for a few minutes while I salivate over this Citroen DS…

Starbucks ain't got nothing on this place
Starbucks ain't got nothing on this place

But even if you’re not a super rich, multiple classic car owner, this is a place you can enjoy - it has a coffee shop that’s open to the public, letting you enjoy a cappuccino while sitting amongst millions of pounds-worth of exotic metal. If you’re ever in this part of the world, you simply have to stop by. It’s damn good coffee too…

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Comments

GTRTURTLE 🔰 🐢(Oo \ S K Y L I N E / oO) (Koen

Starbucks is for normies, this is where its at!

03/04/2018 - 13:50 |
63 | 0

Great for car spotting tho (in Tokyo)! There are two nice ones around!

03/05/2018 - 10:06 |
0 | 0

Starbucks isn’t even for normies. At least normal people have taste.

03/05/2018 - 13:16 |
2 | 0
Carmadnab

How much are plane tickets to Cape Town? It appears that i need one right now.

03/04/2018 - 13:54 |
2 | 0
Aaron 15

350 GT, not 3500 GT!!!

03/04/2018 - 13:55 |
3 | 0

Sorry, got excited with the 0 key! Now fixed.

03/04/2018 - 15:18 |
2 | 0
JenstheGTIfreak (pizza)

Oh yeaaah I’ve seen it his place in STG’s video

03/04/2018 - 13:58 |
8 | 0

Yep we were in South Africa for the same thing - the Audi A7 launch - a couple of weeks before Sam. We were just a bit slow getting the article out ;)

03/04/2018 - 16:47 |
4 | 0
Nishant Dash

OOOHH The Giulia and the 993!
enters South Africa (who’d have guessed) into bucket list

03/04/2018 - 14:27 |
15 | 17

Thats not a 993

03/04/2018 - 17:15 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

Don’t know

03/04/2018 - 15:58 |
0 | 0
CannedRex24

Let’s be honest, if any coffee shop has a an amazing selection of cars, it’s the best coffee shop for any one PERIOD

03/04/2018 - 17:24 |
2 | 0
Spani3l

Can anyone tell me what car this is? Its absolutely gorgeous

03/04/2018 - 18:03 |
4 | 0
Anonymous

Holy shit. I’m a South African and I’ve never heard of this place. And I’m a coffee nut.

03/04/2018 - 19:20 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Schedule a visit, now

03/04/2018 - 23:15 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Ja, jy moet bietjie loer na hulle website. Dis ‘n goeie manier om ‘n maandag te begin! Wanneer ek weer Kaap toe gaan, sal ek verseker daar ‘n stop moet maak!

03/05/2018 - 05:05 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

There’s another place called Club 9 in central cape town with similar setting and great coffee.

03/05/2018 - 05:43 |
0 | 0
Yoorr

Special thanks for the nice high quality pictures!

03/04/2018 - 20:43 |
0 | 0