THE pride and joy of a Bolton classic car enthusiast was wrecked when firebugs set fire to the garage where he kept it.

Gareth Grogan, aged 33, received a frantic call from his mother on Friday night to say the garage behind her home in Beech Avenue, Little Lever, was ablaze with the car inside.

The 1971 Volkswagen Beetle convertible, worth around £4,000, had been painstakingly restored by Mr Grogan after he bought it 10 years ago.

"It's appalling to think that you can't even leave something locked away safe without someone wanting to ruin it," he said.

Fire crews were called, but they were unable to save the garage or the car.

Now just a charred shell of the Volkswagen remains after all the years of Mr Grogan's hard work.

Youngsters were seen running away from the area shortly after the fire had been started and neighbours said the area had been plagued by children staring fires.

Mr Grogan, a call centre manager who moved to Sandbach, Cheshire, from Little Lever three weeks ago, said: "I was just storing it there until I'd got settled in my new house.

"I've spent a lot of time and money putting a new engine in the car and getting it sorted out. I loved driving it and, although it had been off the road for a couple of months, I wanted to start using it again.

"I'm just very angry that someone would come and do this for no reason. It has been a labour of love since I was a young lad and it was quite a rare car."