A HUGE blaze has gutted a car workshop.

A number of cars thought to belong to customers who had brought them to the John Austin garage on the Prince of Wales Industrial Estate in London Road, Marks Tey, were destroyed in the fire.

Fire crews from Colchester, Coggeshall and Tiptree tackled the fire which broke out at 2.30am yesterday.

Colchester station officer Alan Cutter, of Blue Watch, said the blaze was being treated as suspicious.

The garage specialises in Audi and VW cars and on internet sites for car enthusiasts is highly recommended to motorists looking for somewhere to take their cars.

Yesterday afternoon, workers from Colchester-based Kent Blaxill used scaffolding to board up the smashed windows while police and fire investigators were on the scene to investigate the incident.

Two pumps and an aerial ladder from Colchester were used to deal with the fire, which had been brought under control by about 3.40am.

Mr Cutter said it was fortunate the blaze had been restricted to one unit, but said within this a number of vehicles had been destroyed.

He added: “It is being treated as suspicious. We thought it had spread to the roof but it was contained to one unit and had not spread. The garage in the unit was very badly damaged and all the cars inside are ruined.”

The phone lines also went down for a time after being destroyed by the fire, which also covered vehicles parked outside the unit with ash.

But the units directly next to the garage and in the rest of the industrial estate were able to continue as usual.

Garage owner John Austin had driven back from holiday in the Lake District on hearing the news to meet investigators and loss adjustors.

He declined to comment to the Gazette.