Jimmy Price

Port Elizabeth has always been known as a South African motor industry hub, going back to 1924 when the first vehicles rolled off Ford’s local assembly line.

PE’s automotive fortunes have ebbed and flowed since then, but one vehicle manufacturing facility born in the mid-eighties has survived all the economic tides that have flowed through the city – Hi-Tech Automotive.

Jimmy Price is the man behind HiTech Automotive. Jimmy is definitely not your average petrol head car enthusiast – in fact, he grew up in a family with no links to the automotive industry and he and his father were passionate about water sport. Jimmy competed in powerboating, water-skiing and raced hydroplanes, which he describes as “3.5 metre plywood coffins, running on alcohol!” Hydroplane racing was similar to the early years of Formula 1 racing: exciting and dangerous. With boats reaching speeds of 160kph, serious accidents were routine and often fatal.

Jimmy stopped boat racing when his father passed away, and after school, he went into the civil engineering and construction industry. He built up his own business interests in this field and at that stage, his experience of motor manufacturing was limited to rebuilding the scrapped Ford Topolino his Dad had given him while he was still at school.

In 1986, Jimmy’s friend Richard de Beer was building MGTD kit cars, and he received an order from the US for a number of kits. This was in the era of sanctions, and in the end, the order never came to fruition due to all the complications involved in the export process. However, Jimmy started thinking about the possibility of exporting a complete car, as opposed to a kit. He convinced Richard to join him and in the early nineties set up a basic facility on a farm just outside PE. Although Richard did not remain in the business, Jimmy slowly began the process of recreating classic cars for export and exploring ideas that could make his fledgling company profitable.