It's really just about cars.
I've been trying to convince myself of that for decades.
They have taken me into workshops and barns, onto racetracks and mountain passes, into private collections and to places I probably never would have seen without them. And somewhere along the way I realised that the interesting part is rarely just the car.
It is the person behind it.
Why somebody has kept a particular car for thirty years. Why somebody has spent years looking for another one. Why one car is just an asset while another one, worth considerably less, would never be sold at any price. That is the part of this business I still find fascinating.
Of course, I inspect cars. I value them. I find them, buy them, sell them and help people look after them. But I have never been particularly interested in putting one job title on what I do. If it involves a car and you need somebody you can trust to deal with it, I am probably the person you call.
Some things you don't teach.
You pass them on.
Cars have been part of my life for more than three decades. I never really planned for them to become part of my son’s life as well. They just did.
He learned to read roadbooks, use a stopwatch and tripmaster and, somewhere along the way, probably learned far more about old cars than was strictly necessary for a child his age. But there was something more important I wanted him to understand.
An old car is not just something you own.
You look after it. You learn to understand it. You use it. And if you are lucky, you create memories with it that will still matter long after nobody remembers what the car was worth. I have never really thought of what I do as just a job. After all these years, I am not even sure where the job ends and the rest of my life begins. And I am perfectly happy with that.