Mystery Monday: JD Classics' Derek Hood – Without one stroke of luck I would still be a dentist

In the mid-‘80s I bought a Jaguar 3.8 MkII Saloon to work on at home; detailing it to perfection for a bit of weekend use. Just a few weeks later a man walked past my driveway, noticed the car, and we started talking. Within the hour, he’d bought the car from me!

Shortly afterwards, I bought a Mini Cooper S which I spent weeks tinkering with. Incredibly, the very same thing happened again, and the car was bought by yet another passer-by. By then it was hard to ignore the business potential, so I bought a Lotus Cortina from just around the corner, fixed it up so it was better than new, and then listed it with Exchange and Mart. The day the car was advertised, it was sold.

And from there, JD Classics was born.

Since then it’s been three decades of hard work and incredible experiences. For 15 years we rented industrial units in Rettendon, Essex, before moving into our custom-built 100,000 sq/ft facility in Maldon, where we remain to this day. We’ve got 65 craftsmen and women that can take a restoration project from start-to-finish – all without it ever leaving our facility. We originally specialised in Jaguars but around eight years ago we expanded into other marques, including Ferrari, Aston Martin and Maserati, quickly developing a reputation for world-class results.

We have our own engine shop, body shop, metalwork facility, restoration shop, service department and special developments department. We work to whatever our customers ask for; some want concours-winning restorations, while others prefer mechanically-perfect cars with patina that really tells a story. We can spend anywhere from hundreds of hours to many thousands of hours on a project.

Visitors to our Maldon site often describe it as a car enthusiast’s dream, with seven showrooms displaying some of the most incredible models from throughout history, and many examples of our in-house restorations. If I had to pick just one favourite, it would be the Ford GT40 MkIII that was with us for a full restoration – it was the original New York Motor Show car, the original MKIII prototype and one of just seven in existence.

Recently we also opened the first classic car showroom in Mayfair, just off Mount Street, which is undoubtedly my proudest moment in the business so far. People can’t help but stop and look at the ever-changing line-up of incredible cars we always have inside.

The other side of JD Classics is our Competition Department; the historic racing experts of the company. We’ve been doing it for 20 years now, preparing and maintaining race and rally cars for classic car events around the world. If you’ve been to Goodwood Members’ Meeting or Revival, you’ll no doubt have seen some of our cars in action – in fact, we won three races at last year’s Revival! I’d say that’s thanks in no small part to some of the incredible technicians we have at Maldon; our reliability record is something I’m extremely proud of.

In recent years we’ve also supported many of the world’s most highly regarded historic racing events, and now we’re proud to be main sponsors of the Mille Miglia, Goodwood Revival and Le Mans Classic.

And throughout everything, I still get a buzz from working on my own cars at the weekend, with my absolute pride and joy being Lister Jaguar Knobbly ‘YOB 575’, the most original and successful Knobbly in existence. Almost every Sunday I’ll be back out on my driveway, just like I was 30 years ago, tinkering and polishing.