P & K Thornton - HCVA Associate Trade & Industry Member 
              
HCVA-T0066
            

How did you either start, or join the business?

It all started about 4 years ago when I joined the company as a part-time technician working on the cars.

The two owners of the business - Peter & Keith  (that’s where the P&K comes from) - started to think about retiring and it came to a point where they were downsizing and had sold a lot of the assets of the business. There was not much left but there was still some work on the cars to do. Gradually as they were retiring I purchased the goodwill and the assets from them and took over.

What has been your proudest moment in work?

I think it is the quality of the work. It’s all about the people really. When I started it was just me but now there are ten of us and bringing people together and managing to work well as a team is my proudest moment. Combined with the end product  and managing to deliver a quality service and product is my best moment.

Why should HCVA members use your services?

We are possibly the longest established Jaguar restoration company in England if not in the world though - that doesn’t say much it’s just a title.  It comes back to the people and what we deliver really, we came together very well and are able to overachieve our ambitions.  In the last three years the growth has been phenomenal. I don’t think anyone was expecting it including the old owners. I think they are amazed at what we achieved but it’s all about the quality of the people.

You are bringing people up through the business aren’t you? I see you’ve got Callum who work through the Heritage Skills Academy

Yes we got involved with Heritage Skills Academy from the start. Callum has been great, he is progressing well and I’m really happy with the association it is working well. Based on this success we employed a second apprentice, Harry,  to follow the panel beater course.

What is the most valuable lesson your work at P&K Thornton has taught you?

With the classic cars I learned that I have to be patient from a management point of view. You can’t achieve anything by rushing it. It’s all about the time - if we are given the time then we are able to save these cars to keep them going. But we just need time.

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

Just to work hard and somehow there is a path in life that takes you where you want to be.  When I was 18, I was dreaming of doing what I am doing now - basically I’m living the dream!

You do race driving too don’t you? Is that something you started young?

I've always been interested in motorsport, I started watching the Formula One and World Rally Championship.  My participation in British motorsport started in karting and later I moved into single seaters with Formula Ford 1600 and later hillclimb in a Mallock Mk23b. With P&K, my goal has been to be in a historic race Jaguar and that came after 3 years of hard work with the latest acquisition being a well known and historically important Jaguar Mk1 ex-Bill Pinckney and Derek Bell.

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

I am very lucky that I drive lots of cars, I test drive all the cars here - sometimes 3 or 4 different cars a day. This is where my racing experience comes into play as we are setting up a car, listening for noises and translating that into practice.  

I think my favourite has to be the C-Type. I drove a C-Type that we worked on last year that blew me away - the experience is really something else. In comparison an E-type becomes normal compared to the C-Type engine. Obviously there is nothing wrong with an E-type they are phenomenal cars. It was a recreation C-Type, I wish it was an original, it’s the open cockpit experience. It was a highly tuned modified race spec engine with Webber 50’s. It was something else that car.

The favourite car that I own - I own many cars, road cars, race cars - I think (and this may sound funny) it’s a big old Daimler. I have a 1948 Daimler DB18 saloon. It’s not a spectacular car, the bodywork was not great when I bought it, it was a typical Boxing Day, too much red wine, Ebay purchase. I didn’t think about it much, it sounded like a great idea at the time and I went for it and purchased  it. We’ve done lots of work on it, it has a preselector gear box that took some time to get used to it but once you do you get that vintage feel. It’s a big four door saloon with lots of space. It's not fast but it’s a great car and I like it.

My racing background is heavy on the Quadrifoglio side. For a long time in my youth I raced a 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super, a good looking Italian lady in red, a bit of the heavy side if anything, but very good looking. I fell in love with the Spider as soon as I found it advertised on a well known social media website and it took us 9 good months to rebuild it from head to toe, it's now race ready to compete for class honours on England's finest race tracks and Internationally. 

Having been a very successful race car previously, we are looking forward to it's competitive running. My love for classic Alfa Romeo transpired into a new business venture called Alficina as in Officina Alfa Romeo - Servizio 750/101/105 Series, P&K Thornton's Italian flavour counter part, bringing a little bit of Dolce Vita to Nottinghamshire shores.

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

Originally, I come from Romania and back in Romania I had quite a lot of Dacia, Dacia is the national car of Romania.  I had a second hand Dacia 1310, an estate car. It was a typical Communist-era Eastern European car, very basic not much to it.  I’m a lot happier now driving classic  Jaguars!

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

This is going to be controversial; we are primarily a classic Jaguar specialist and we service all Jaguars before the end of V12 E-type. One thing we are seeing more and more of is the XJS, a lot of people slate it and a lot of people love it both on looks and technicalities. If I speak to some of my technicians, they say it’s complicated and the electrics are lot more difficult than we see on the 50’s & 60’s cars but when I drive it, I find it is very fast, comfortable and refined so I think it is an up and coming classic and we are seeing that in the prices.  I think it’s one to get hold of, but unfortunately being built in the 70’s & 80’s they are prone to rust. It’s very difficult to find a good one. 

At this stage they are not worth much so it is hard to justify a big expenditure on an XJS when it’s not worth half of what you spend on it -  so you only do it in certain cases. But I think they are great cars, we just need to get used to the looks of it coming from an E-type.

What has been your favourite ever classic car experience?

I have participated in the HERO rallies and those have been a great experience. I did one last year, one of the challenges and we are doing another one in March, in a Jaguar MKII 3.8 - one of the HERO challenges at Chester. Those are great experiences, I would recommend hem as they are well organised and have a  great atmosphere.  It’s not just me here, all the technicians here are well informed we are living and breathing the motor sport and classic car scene.

Why did you join the HCVA?

We are connected to a lot of other restoration companies and I went on to the website and thought that we need this power behind the industry to help us. The way I think of it is we need to keep the wire wheels turning. That’s what we do here - 99% of the cars we work on have wire wheels and I thought, you know, we need to keep going and I thought it was a welcome initiative.