The History Of Porthall Garages
In 1948, 5 retired REMEs (Eric, Jim, P, D and M) started a small garage in a small court yard near Brighton(UK). They named their garage after the name of the road it was on, Porthall Road.
This group of talented and experienced engineers wanted more that just making a living. Of course, they needed money to pay their bills. But what they wanted the most was to use their knowledge, skills, passion and talent to help maintain and improve one of the most incredible and beautiful creations of mankind – cars, in order to give back to the society which had fed and nurtured them since they took their first breaths.
Based on their passion, talent and skills, each devoted his time and effort to a specific area: Eric – engine; Jim – suspension and steering; P – exhaust; D and M – body work.
To begin with, their customers came from the neighbourhood and Brighton area. Because of their outstanding quality of work, their customer base quickly extended to the rest of the UK, then Europe, then the rest of the world. Within a few years, not only individual car owners came to them for help, but also distinguished car manufacturers (such as Jaguar and Rolls Royce) and even racing teams (such as Ferrari, Alpha Romeo) asked them to help resolve impossible problems they were facing.
Sometimes, they were flown to customer’s site to do their magic. Other times, the customer brought their top-secrete project to the humble garage for help (in which case, Access Restricted tents were set up to protect the secrete project).
Quite often, as soon as they successfully helped improved one customer’s car performance, the customer’s competitors asked them to help beat the first customer.
The founder of the new generation of Porthall, Jess, is Eric’s nephew. He was sent to Porthall to be looked after by the engineers’ wives during his parents’ working hours, since he was a baby. The engineers gave Jess broken car parts for repair before he was able to stand up or speak. The car repair education didn’t stop at Porthall. When he got home, Jess also helped his father, Charlie (another ex-REME), to look after family cars. Jess’ mother frequently broke her cars, which gave Jess extensive repair opportunities. At the age of 8, he had already gained the reputation of Triumph Boy, because of his extraordinary ability to repair Triumph cars.
Once, Jess was asked to fix a Triumph Stag for a regular customer of Porthall, Melvin. Melvin loved his Stag dearly and had asked top mechanics around the world to fix her. But no one succeeded. When he was introduced to Triumph Boy, Melvin didn’t believe that this young boy stood a chance of fixing the seemingly impossible problem. Purely out of desperation, he decided to let him give it a go. ‘ She’s already dead. What harm can he do? ’ He thought.
After an intense, non-stop 48-hour session with Stag, Jess not only brought the engine back to life, but also made it sing more beautifully than she was first made.
All of the Porthall engineers loved this talented, smart and hard-working boy. They took him under their wings, and unreservedly shared with him their knowledge and expertise. When he was at the right age, they helped him secure an apprentice position with 3 top brands at the time: Rolls Royce, BMW and Mercedes. Because of his circumstances, Jess chose BMW. Later on, he also got an opportunity to train with Rolls Royce Avionics.
In recent years, the car industry has experienced 2 big changes:
- from pure mechanical to electronic controls;
- from petrol to EV.
As a result, the beautiful mechanical petrol cars with which Jess grew up have become a dying breed, as do the mechanics and engineers who serve them. This broke Jess’ heart. That’s why he decided to re-open the historically glorious Porthall Garage, in order to help and save as many classic cars as we can.