HERO-ERA - HCVA Founding Partner
              
HCVA-T0045
            

How did you start the business?

After many years working in the city I left the banking world and finally had time to take part on LE JOG. I got to the end of the rally and I couldn't believe how great an event it was. I couldn’t believe that there were only about 15 cars on the event - it should be by far more popular.

LE JOG is a reliability rally going from Lands’ End to John O’Groats. It takes place in winter and is probably the toughest rally event in Europe. It's very focused on navigation and endurance. You start in Cornwall and travel all the way up through Wales at night and then on to the furthest point in Scotland. So pretty much an epic journey.

I approached the organiser and asked about who owned the rally, offered some ideas and asked what I could do to help. Although offered a role as a Marshall I felt I could do more. Fast forward a few months and we had an agreement in place to help HERO develop and bought some focus to improving and enhancing the whole rally experience. That was around fourteen years ago.

I was driving my 1969 Porsche 911 2.2S which has been my partner in crime for just under 28 years. I bought her when classic cars were not in favour and I traded a banged-up BMW 320 series and I bought the Porsche.

I paid at the time about £3,000.  It was my car at university and people asked me what possessed you to be driving an orange car and I said well I’m sat inside the car the colour doesn’t bother me that much. I still have 180bhp of Ferdinand Porsche genius sitting behind me.  You are driving a more modern car and all you are facing is depreciation. I still own the car and she is still my rally car.

How did HERO develop?

We made an offer to buy the intellectual property and then we set up a new company and restructured operations. We paid off all the outstanding debts that the company had before. It was running through a bit of a cash flow issue because clearly the business was run with a lot of passion but perhaps it needed more money to work properly.

The previous owner had mortgaged his house to pay the debts - his heart was in the right place, but he didn’t necessarily have the resources or the working capital to make it what it needed to be. A few years later we bought the Classic Rally Association to create more scale and a bigger pool of events to offer those interested in taking part.

Four years ago we bought the Endurance Rally Association to offer long distance adventure endurance rallies such as Lima to Cape Horn, the Sahara Challenge, the Peking to Paris etc. Over the last 15 years we developed our membership base, our charity initiatives, the 'arrive and drive' fleet, entry level events, 'teach ins' educational projects, the carbon offsetting and other activities connected in the wider world of motoring.

What has been your proudest moment in work?

There are many but I think it was the challenge of professionalising the industry has been a great success.

Classic car rallying was always organised as an amateur sport - non-professional. The passion allowed people to take the time off and dedicate their free time to marshalling and organising and then after the financial crisis we saw that people were somewhat stuck for cash and the just couldn’t make the time or support the costs to and be involved in rallying.

So we took a different view and rather than ask people to do it in their free time, we thought about whether we could make the business work by giving people a long term employment opportunity instead. Making a career of being an event organiser in classic car rallying and everything that goes in between from marketing to managing the cars to hospitality and the media side of the business.

We are able to offer people long-term rewarding employment. You can work in a place where your wellbeing from a job satisfaction point of view is huge. When you wake up in the morning you don’t think 'I can’t be bothered to go to work', you wake up and it's more 'I can’t wait to go and do that'.

Some of our employees get to go and see the world which they maybe wouldn’t have got to do otherwise. From a pay perspective they get paid equal to, or in many cases more than they would have had if they hadn’t joined the company and been in broader industries that are less personal. You are 'a person and not a number' effectively I think that’s a proud moment for all of us - not just for me but for the everyone in the company.

You met Philip Young who was a very colourful character. Philip and John Brown were the inventors of everything we enjoy today in terms of competitive and long distance historic rallying. When we took over the CRA (his first brain child) even though he saw us as  competition he did mumble once at Race Retro ‘well at least it’s in good hands’.

When we invited him to come and take part in the 20th running of the Classic Marathon (the first ever event in 1988 organised specifically for the classic car and not a revival of an old one) he did gracefully thank us.  To win over the trust of Philip Young was a great achievement - his estate were favourable in selling us their platform because we were proven to be conservationists of what they had done rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. We really wanted to protect the genius and hard work that he and John Brown had put before so we are kind of custodians of that.

What is the most valuable lesson your work has taught you?

I think finding the right balance between being hard-nosed with certain aspects of things like quality control but also trying to be humble in your approach to other things. On one side you have to be forceful and have some kind of vision to push through things - obviously the future is always unknown but try to do it with as much humility as you can to make sure that it is transparent that you are doing it for the benefit of everybody following you as opposed to some personal egotistical benefit. The more you try to do that the more you get people to work with you and around you and work for a common goal rather than be perceived as being over ambitious or greedy.

What piece of advice about your work would you give your younger self?

There are many things that we have tried to do that didn’t really fly.

A good idea doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to work. In our particular case it is sometimes more luck than judgement, I guess.

We've had more winners than we have losers but some of the losers had us thinking about how on earth did that never work. You have to appreciate that not everybody thinks as you do. People come from different angles for different reasons and you have to respect that and so with hindsight I wouldn’t have ventured into some of the areas I did. But on the flip side what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. We were fortunate to have the right vision in other areas to be able to absorb the financial cost and time that was invested in the aspects of what we do that didn’t quite have the popularity that we felt they should have done.

What is your favourite car that you have owned - and why?

This is like asking the father of five children in a family which is his favourite child! I somehow feel that I’m betraying one car if I talk well about one other. I think what you’ll find is the following the different cars that I’ve owned I’ve owned for different reasons, and I do different things with them.

My orange 911 is a natural part in my heart because without her I would never have done my first rallies 30 years ago without which I would never have had the opportunity to even consider HERO which is such a big part of my life, so my orange car is definitely there.

I have a lovely little Fiat Panda 4x4 that we have in the countryside as the most resilient car that will never leave you on the side of the road.

Lately I have fallen in love with a bit of a weird car because it will represent this epic adventure that I’m undertaking which is the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge in a 1914 American LaFrance Type 10 which is a chain driven Edwardian car weighing 2.7 tons. It has a 9 litre 4-cylinder engine.

I’m completely out of my element in it. People have asked me whether I am going to train in the gym. The only way you can train is by driving it so it’s actually my daily driver now when I’m in the Bicester area and I can tell you having done a hundred miles last weekend I felt I had played in a Five Nations rugby game. I have eighteen months to train and that’s what I’m focusing on!

The first two that I mentioned are the ones that I’ve been tinkering with, and one has been a catalyst for all things HERO and the other is just a family member that has endured so many different stories. I remember falling asleep on my dad’s lap when he was driving that car or pressing the accelerator when I thought he was going too slow as it doesn’t have a central transmission tunnel.  It’s still in the family and that car has been with us for more than 40 years.

The LaFrance was formerly a US fire truck. The running gear, engine and wooden wheels are all original.  She was rebodied in the 1960’s when she was bought to the UK I have just spent a 2 year restoration with a company called DT Vintage who did a restoration to make it fit for purpose for the Peking to Paris but it is the original car so pretty difficult.

It just has a back tub and a 'pop on pop off' hood - the rest is just the running gear. It was a flatbed originally but that was the only thing that was changed in the 1960’s otherwise I’ve just done a nut and bolt restoration to make sure it will survive or at least try to survive the Peking to Paris.

We need to be as authentic as possible we are the oldest car and being chairman of the event that we organise. I’m doing it with Ben Cussons, Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club and we are going to try to do the event with the least if not no support from the organisation whatsoever so as to not take up resources from the other competitors.

Your practical historical mechanical skills between the two of you are quite good then?

Ben is far more fluent than I am in the practical things - he likes to tinker in his garage more often than I do. The choice of a 1914 car means that mechanically it is quite straight forward. You need a lot of muscle just for the weight of the car is but we’ve got 14 months to go and we are doing regular practical weekends - changing the wheels, changing the sprocket, changing the chain, fixing the car -  because they are so much more simple than cars just 10 years younger.

How did you acquire the car?

This is the fault of my business partner Patrick Burke - Managing Director of HERO.

We were at Race Retro and DT Vintage were the stand next to ours. Patrick pointed out how amazing and unusual the car looked and neither of us knew what it was so we spoke to DT Vintage. They told us it was an American LaFrance and the story of the fire truck.

Patrick (as a joke) suggested that I should do the Peking to Paris in it. But I thought actually that’s funny - but what a challenge! I called Ben and asked his thoughts and he was immediately all for it. That was 2 and a half years ago.

What is your least favourite car that you have owned - and why?

I did briefly have a Range Rover 4 litre SE 4 door long wheelbase in Italy and that car was just not a happy car.

No matter what I did with it, it was just past its sell by date, and it was just not a lucky car.  I sold it a year later and I think it was cut and made into a pickup and currently lives on a farm somewhere in Italy.  But I love Range Rovers. I had unfinished business so I found a suffix A car which I drive on a regular basis and that one I absolutely love.

It’s a short chassis, pretty agricultural, wonderful car that when you accelerate the bonnet vibrates. In terms of off-road capability, it’s a really great car.

The wonderful thing is I drive it on a regular basis. I get stopped by onlookers, policemen and the general public, the bus driver - everybody will give you a thumbs up.

The wonderful thing about these cars generally (including a Jaguar XJ series) they still bring out curiosity and not envy - and that’s such a luxury to be able to live with when people look at your car and they smile as an immediate reaction.

Whether they are young people who don’t know what car it is, modern cars all look the same for technological reasons of safety and new standards of construction and air bags and all the other gizmos that we have to have.  For me, they are useful mobility units but the cars we talk now, it is actually an active choice to drive it. You don’t want the easy version - you want the difficult version. You want a button - you don’t want a touch screen not because you don’t like the touch screen, but you enjoy the button more. You enjoy it when you use it at the weekends or whenever.  

We have sensible cars but I try to drive my classic cars as much as possible. I’m a real driver of these cars so it’s great to have a bipartisan approach in terms of age and locations that everybody seems to smile when they look at a classic car and some people are gracious enough to say you go after me which is a sign of respect. It's good and also it supports a whole series of skills to keep them on the road.

In a time of greater automation and big business I think that artisanal work is important, whether it’s the upholsterer, the panel beater, the engineer, the mechanic - these are important skills that we shouldn’t forget about. It's no different to those that work in any other form of restoration whether its period buildings, paintings or furniture. We should always protect these industries.

What is a great example of a future classic in your opinion?

I think on the affordable scale that Mazda MX-5’s will be a popular entry point - they will be the equivalent of MGB’s for the younger generation because they are affordable, fun, simple cars they have that kind of joi-de-vivre 'hop in the car, drop the roof down'. It’s an easy car and I hope they are used by people to have that 'analogue car' experience as they work their way up. Of course, MGB’s are a great car but are now more expensive than they were 10 years ago.

I think in terms of great classics, cars that are sleepers, I think the 550 Maranello as the last V12, manual gearbox Ferrari - I see those trading at a premium as opposed to the 'flappy paddle' or the F1-developed model. As the world becomes more 'automatic gear shift'  that whole manual gearbox becomes pertinent.

For many years I just couldn’t understand how an elegant car that derives its shape from the Daytona and that has all the heritage of being an analogue Ferrari. Over the last 2 – 3 years they have had a pick up as people have said 'hold on a minute why is that car so cheap?' Those that have bought them have discovered that it is a great car, a great Grand Turismo car. You’ve got enough boot space, they are comfortable inside, it’s a relatively modern car and you are buying them at a fraction of other Ferraris.

Paradoxically the ones that are starting to trade slightly better are the ones that are used on a regular basis, because like all cars the less you use them the more they need recommissioning which is an expensive thing to do.

On the Ferrari topic if you look at the 365 GT4 2+2 this is the post Queen Mary equivalent 2+2 Ferrari. If you bought it in period in the 1970’s it was more expensive than the Daytona. The Daytona now is a whopping unaffordable £500,000 car and these cars - the last one was bought at Bonhams for between £50,000 & £60,000 and has the same Daytona engine but with a wet sump.

I have a Jaguar XJC - the 4.2 litre 2 door pillarless car. I love that car. I drove it down to Tuscany and then I drove back via France and it didn’t miss a beat - it was an absolute dream. You just waft along without a care in your head. Just fantastic and a pure joy.

I think that is another kind of sleeper because you can pick those cars for around £15,000 - £20,000. You need to make sure it’s not rotten in the sills because of course that’s the issue that all the 1970’s cars had because we were buying cheap steel around the world. It’s a great car engineering wise. It’s got some really difficult flaws though. For example to look at the vent system you’ve got to work behind the bulkhead and take half the engine out!

They weren’t considering the practicality of how to access different areas.  But, from a driving perspective it is a great car. When I look at the shapes and the lines of that car, I just think it’s beautiful and I can’t believe its £10,000 -£15,000.

Again, it’s another car that people stop you in the street and say 'my dad used to have one of those'. I was in the south of France this summer and I parked the car in a public car park in a village and for some reason an amazing car parked up next to the Jag. It was either a 275 or 330 GTS so this was a significantly different pedigree car and around the car were a bunch of English tourists (rather well to do) commenting on the cars.

I asked them why they were looking at the Jaguar XJC -they should be looking at the Ferrari GTS - and one guy said 'no, no, no my father had the 4 door' and they were comparing the dashboard, the seats and they asked whether I could open the door as they wanted to be reminded of the smell of that Connolly leather.

What has been your favourite ever classic car experience?

My first rally with Le Jog was amazing but I think the toughest I ever did was London to Lisbon in a 1930 Riley Brooklands simply because I realised why it was called Brooklands and not alpine tourer because obviously the cockpit was so small.

I got to Lisbon, and I had significant issues with my sciatic nerve from sitting in such a small car for such a long time.  It was just an epic adventure because the Riley started falling apart halfway through because it simply wasn’t built to do that kind of mileage. Having to rebuild it at night to re-join the rally and having all the other participants asking where we were at the end of the each day.

Invariably we would arrive at 2 o’clock in the morning to be welcomed by the late people who were still chatting in the bar having a cigar or being welcomed at breakfast saying 'Oh my God you made it last night'.  To have all that support and people cheering us on was really cool and that camaraderie was another example of how these rallies have a multiple dimension.

They are popular because you create such friendships specific to the rally and with those people for that event - but when you meet them again you have so much in commoon. It’s great to have competition and yet to have everybody willing to help each other is fantastic.

Why did you get involved with the HCVA?

We commissioned an environmental and economic impact study that was launched in 2020 just to show people that this was a relevant and important industry. It need to be saved and to allow the next generation to benefit and thrive in this industry. So that was the kind of catalyst to bring people together.  

When the idea of joining an alliance that has as a mission that and to protect other pertinent aspects of the classic car industry and make it fit for purpose for the next generation it was an obvious consequence that I would want to join and promote its activities where possible.  

There was a lack of a unified voice - there are many voices which is important but I think it is vital that from a trade perspective we are able to talk as an industry to law makers to to help them understand and appreciate our points of view so that they can fine tune any legislation to make sure that we are not left behind. Not because there is an intent to leave us behind but because they just don’t know.  

So to work together and help them to understand how many people depend on it as an industry , both directly and indirectly, what the value add contribution is to the economy and to allow Britain to remain a centre of excellence so we can attract people who want to enjoy the country, the hospitality through the use of a classic car and then if they have to come here and  maintain them and restore them and support the skills and jobs we have here.

From a carbon footprint perspective it is very important point and the emissions are also very small because the actual average mileage that a classic car drives is so limited. People who are quite rightly concerned with climate and climate action should feel that we are not contributors, on the contrary we are very green.

For our members who have never done a classic rally and would like to have a go where would a good place be for them to start?

HERO has an event called the Novice Trial which was specifically designed for people who are interested and want to discover more. 

It's an annual Spring event where the format is some classroom workshops at Bicester Heritage where we have our headquarters and then you get into the car and it’s a two-day event.

Each section gets slightly more complicated so by the end of it you have the tools to understand what we do, how it works and what it really involves. You can hire our cars if you don’t have a car or you bring your own car. It’s pretty easy stuff and it’s been a great platform for people to build confidence and many have then chosen to do different events and some have gone on all the way and ended up rallying in New Zealand and seen continents that they wouldn’t have seen if it hadn’t been for the classic car.  So the Novice Trial is your entry point!