Inside the amazing classic car world of JD Classics

If classic cars are your passion, it’s usually a joyous one that you don’t mind costing you a fortune. You certainly don’t expect it to make you one, yet that’s just what they’ve done for Derek Hood, who founded JD Classics 30 years ago and, in 2015, joined the Sunday Times Rich List.

He calls it all a stroke of luck, but he’s too modest. Hood, a trained dentist, was already an accomplished car restorer when, in 1986, a fellow petrolhead commented on how good the work on his Jaguar Mk2 was. And offered to buy it. For what Hood felt, at the time, was a fortune. He couldn’t say no, and ploughed the profits into a Mini Cooper S, which he again restored. And again, sold for a healthy margin.

A Lotus Cortina followed, and he sold that the very same day he advertised it. An idea was born. JD Classics opened in 1987 and, soon after, Hood quit dentistry for good.

The business used to specialise in Jaguars, but broadened its horizons a decade ago. Today, the giant operation is housed in a 100,000sq ft facility near Maldon, boasting no fewer than seven car showrooms and over 150 of the world’s finest classics. Every one of them is for sale.

JD’s MD is David Godber. “Our motto is ‘wonderful cars, made perfect’”. He takes us on a tour of the premises: he warns us it will take at least an hour. Probably longer than that: barely have we stepped through the main showroom than we spot a 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale Spider raced by Brit F1 champ Mike Hawthorne. Over the way is a one-of-20 right-hand drive Lamborghini Miura SV. The last Shelby Cobra 289 raced by Carroll Shelby himself is there. We quickly become delirious.

The business, explains ex-Nissan works racing driver and now JD operations manager Chris Ward, turns over £100 million a year and is divided across three divisions – customer car restoration, buying and selling restored classics, and classic car racing. All this is why half the space at JD is occupied by workshops – on site is a body shop, metalworking shop, race workshop, engine shop and a massive store of parts which, we’re told, contains 250 fully-built engines alone. What they can’t do themselves, they entrust to an expert supplier network, mostly based within a two-mile radius.

Eventually, we reach the final key area at JD Classics. The inspection shop, whose overlord is ‘Big’ Phil Grey. Only if something passes his detailed inspection will it leave the site. His current job is pretty normal for JD – detailing a Porsche 356 for delivery to a posh London hotel, where it will be presented a surprise birthday gift to its new owner. “Cars like ours will always be special,” says Godber.

The business has room to grow further, he reckons. “We could offer financial services, insurance, storage and transport, and event support. We’re also starting to help people improve and curate their collections, advising them on sales and acquisitions. And we want to help people run cars that might otherwise be considered difficult, perhaps an F1 car or something unusual like a Bugatti EB110. We’ll go anywhere to help.”

Surely, though, JD Classics must be worried that the classic car market has reached a peak in values? Indeed, says Hood, they’ve probably reached the high point and some may now start to fall. But not the best ones. “I’ve known three reversals in 30 years. The reasons have always been the same. People forget that the cars that have risen fastest are the highest-quality models with the best stories attached.”

These will always remain valuable. But as the economy weakens, it will bite the speculators with the average or below-average cars. Recently, such people, who “can’t see past the shine,” have been making up a third of the market. They’re the ones who will suffer. Not something that should worry passionate, knowledgeable people such as Hood.