jd classics has taken sales, restoration and race

THE SPECIALIST
jd classics
success
all areas
JD Classics has taken sales, restoration and racecar preparation to new heights. We look inside
words peter tomalin
PHOTOGRAPHY charlie magee
MALDoN IN ESSEX isn’t quite mecca, but, if you
really love classic cars, this is about as close as you’ll get.
Maldon is home to JD Classics, and even if you don’t have
a car in one of its workshops, or a project undergoing
restoration in its bodyshop, even if there’s nothing that
takes your eye in one of its eight – yes eight – showrooms
(unlikely), you simply have to find an excuse to visit. You
won’t regret it, though your other half might.
Astons are only one facet, of course, although they’re an
important and rapidly expanding part of the business.
So you’ll find yourself face to face with classic Jaguars and
Ferraris too, as well as the odd 1980s BTCC car, but we’d
like to think Vantage readers are broad-minded about
these things. In fact, if there’s a drop of petrol in your
veins, then one visit probably won’t be enough. An annual
pilgrimage may well be the only answer.
It’s a crisp, early January morning when we arrive, and
already the whole place is quietly humming with activity.
Later we’ll meet boss Derek Hood, but for now our guide
around the pristine, purpose-built workshops and
showrooms is Chris Ward, leading historic racing driver,
formerly chief instructor at Silverstone, now full-time at
JD Classics where he co-ordinates the various departments
and handles customer liaison. He’s clearly PR-savvy and
endlessly accommodating, but then so is everyone else
here. We’ve visited very few places where the workforce
have been so uniformly cheery and cooperative; just so
obviously pleased to be here. And why wouldn’t they be?
The sheer scale of the operation takes a while to get your
head around. The workshops and showrooms at Maldon
cover 100,000sq ft. When JD Classics moved here 17 years
1 3 4 s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 v a n ta g e
ago from its previous premises in nearby Rettendon, there
were initally eight employees. Today there are more than
60. The company also recently opened a separate salesroom
in London’s Mayfair, more of which in a moment.
The sales operation alone is pretty mindblowing. Even
those eight showrooms aren’t enough to hold all of the
stock, which currently stands at around 150. So there are
another 120,000sq ft of industrial units around Maldon,
used mainly for car storage. Equally remarkably, JD owns
around 90 per cent of all these vehicles.
On top of that, there are around 25 cars currently in for
service or restoration. In the main workshop today, these
include a number of classic Jaguars (mostly XKs) but also
a magnificent Ferrari Daytona (just sold), a sublime
Maserati 3500GT Vignale Spyder (sold last year, back for a
service), and a very pretty Series 1 DB4, a JD Classics
Above and left
The main workshop (above);
on the day of our visit, the cars
included a number of Jaguar
XKs (a JD staple), but also a
Ferrari 246GT Dino and a
Daytona, a gorgeous Maserati
Vignale Spyder (centre) and an
extremely pretty DB4 S1. Left:
Daytonas again, but also a fine
array of Astons, including the
‘washboard’ DB2, in one of
JD’s eight showrooms
THE SPECIALIST
jd classics
‘An engine service means taking the engine out of the car,
stripping it completely and checking every component’
Above and opposite
DB2/4 drophead is a customer’s
car about to undergo preparation
work for this year’s Mille Miglia.
‘YOB’, the Lister-Jaguar ‘Knobbly’
behind it, is one of 35 race-cars
owned by JD. Walls of the race
shop are adorned with laurels
from Goodwood and elsewhere.
Opposite: DB4’s carbs removed
for inspection; shaping a wing in
the body shop, and a trio of DB
Astons in the main showroom
restoration, back for light fettling and an engine service –
which here means taking the engine out of the car,
stripping it down and checking every component. No-one
could ever accuse JD Classics of doing things by halves.
Chris points to a Ferrari Dino, partially disassembled.
‘It’s getting the typical JD sales process,’ he says. ‘It’s a car
we’ve just sold, so it’s now getting a service and inspection.’
And this is rather more than your local garage would do.
‘Most of the running gear comes to bits and the mechanics
go through it intimately, correcting any faults they find.
‘Basically, the cars in the showroom are in a “show”
state. They’re MoT’d and safety-checked when they come
in [JD even has its own MoT bay] so they can be driven.
But there’s always lots of improvements that can be made
to bring them up to the JD standard. So every car that goes
through sales has a minimum of 150 hours spent on it after
it’s been sold to make sure it’s right before it goes out the
door. And that is a minimum – some will get a lot more,
depending on the condition when we take them in.
‘From a cash-flow point of view, if we did this work to
every car as it arrived, it wouldn’t be viable. It might not
sell for six months. Also, we could do a lot of work to a car,
and a customer might want something different anyway.’
Then there’s a full JD Classics restoration. And whereas
most specialists farm-out at least some of the work – often
bodywork and paint, sometimes trim – JD does everything
in-house, bar heavy machining (basically just engine
1 3 6 s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 v a n ta g e
blocks and cranks). So it has its own machine shop and
engine shop; body fabrication shop, paint shop with two
spray booths, even its own trim shop.
A full JD Classics restoration is eyewateringly expensive
but the quality of the work is inarguable and confirmed by
walls of cabinets packed with trophies from the world’s
swankiest concours, including Pebble Beach, where JD has
achieved class wins for six years running. It had its first
Aston at last year’s event, the stunning ‘washboard’ DB2
(so named for the appearance of the slatted vents on the
front wings) pictured over the page. It placed third, but, as
Chris points out, the cars that beat it were prototypes –
often favoured by the Pebble judges.
From the main workshop we pass through to the race
shop, and again it’s hard to know where to look first.
JD Classics has long been heavily involved in motorsport.
‘When we win at Goodwood or the Silverstone Classic, it
proves the quality of the engineering work,’ says Chris,
‘which filters through to the work we do on the road cars.’
JD itself owns around 35 race-cars, shared between a
roster of drivers. Indeed, Chris’s own initial involvement
with the company was as a driver. He points out the
Cooper-Jaguar that he and boss Derek drove to victory in
the Freddie March Memorial Trophy at last year’s
Goodwood Revival. The E-type Lightweight that Chris
and Gordon Shedden took to a stunning win in the RAC
TT celebration on the same weekend isn’t here today, but
V A NTA GE
spring 2016 137
THE SPECIALIST
jd classics
This page and opposite
Left: Aladdin’s cave had nothing
on this; engine parts machined
in-house, Astons are a growing
part of the business; new body
panels shaped by English wheel.
Right: DB4 is a restored car that’s
back at JD for some light fettling.
Below: DB2 placed third at Pebble
Beach last year, while the DB6 has
done just 15,000 miles from new
there’s plenty of other eye-catching metal, from the exFangio C-type Jaguar to the famous Bastos-liveried Rover
3500 Touring Car.
There’s also a rather handsome DB2/4 drophead, a
customer car that’s about to be prepared for this year’s
Mille Miglia revival. ‘We’ll pull the whole car to pieces,
then we’ll rebuild it, making sure that it’s strong enough
and fit enough to finish the Mille,’ says Chris, ‘and we’ll fit
the necessary safety gear – isolator, extinguishers – along
with navigation equipment, stopwatches, etc. We also fit
strips of LED lights underneath the car and underneath
the bonnet. They weigh next to nothing, don’t drain any
power and they make servicing at night so much easier.’
That’s typical of JD’s attention to detail, but then the
Mille Miglia is a big deal for the company. It takes as many
as 15 cars every year, with a support crew of 30 and half a
dozen chase vehicles carrying all the necessary parts to
keep them running. It’s a remarkable operation, but it
clearly pays dividends: in eight years of competing it has
a 100 per cent finish record. And it’s that sort of record that
attracted the attention of Jaguar itself, which appointed JD
Classics as its Heritage Racing partner worldwide.
But while the company is still best known for its work
with Jaguars, Derek Hood took the decision around six
years ago to embrace other marques, including Aston
Martin. Derek himself had always been an Aston fan – his
personal collection includes a DB6 Mk2 Volante and a DB4
GT. The company then had to prove that what it could do
with Jaguars it could also do with other makes. And you’d
have to say that so far it’s working rather well. The Aston
side of the business is growing by 20-30 per cent a year,
JD now has a number of full Aston restorations under its
belt with more lined up, and it’s also taking on more and
more servicing work. ‘Aston really is starting to become a
major part of the business,’ says Chris.
There’s no shortage of Astons in the showrooms today.
They include the DB4 Series 3 factory demonstrator,
discovered in America last year, and a DB5 convertible,
just three owners from new and, unusually, originally
delivered to Hollywood as a right-hand-drive car.
Meanwhile, at the Mayfair salesroom, there’s a DB6
Volante fresh from a full JD Classics restoration.
Opening a ten-car showroom in the centre of London
and at such a prestigious address – opposite the Connaught
Hotel – seems a typically bold move by JD Classics. But
apparently it was purely pragmatic: some London-based
customers just wouldn’t make the trek to deepest Essex.
And the next chapter? Derek has been approached to
take the whole JD Classics ‘brand’ to other parts of the
world and open similar operations in the States, in Paris
and Singapore. Time to meet the man himself…
1 3 8 s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 V A NTA GE
V A NTA GE
spring 2016 139