Doing things differently

Not only are Aubrey Automobiles' creations unique so too is the team behind them. Its boss tells Will Rimell how she's taking a wrench to car restoration stereotypes

- Will Rimell

Just a few miles outside the Essex city of Colchester, where the busy A120 condenses into one lane, is an inconspicuous left turn into a sleepy country lane. A farmhouse greets you, with its usual array of outbuildings. Within one sits a 1988 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen. But this isn't your usual 280GE: this is Aubrey Automobiles' second restoration, or Aubrey 002 for short. It's a "more sympathetic" follow-up to the bold-looking re-envisioned 1973 Land Rover Series 3 109 (Aubrey 001) that put the incipient firm on the map when it was unveiled last year.

You might think this is nothing special when many places now do resto modding, but Aubrey is different. According to founder Georgia Peck, "other restoration firms are very macho, and that's not us. Ours is very understated luxury." What also makes the business stand out is 29-year-old Peck herself, who is emerging as an inadvertent trailblazer for young women in what remains a male-dominated industry.

Peck has always loved cars, having grown up tinkering with classics with her dad and watching videos of her motorsport hero, Henry Aubrey Peck.

"I didn't watch Clark Kent on television, I watched my grandad," she says.

Aged 19, Peck bought her first classic: a 1992 Mini Arc de Triomphe. Before long, she was sourcing classics for clients, as rare and valuable as an Aston Martin DB5. At 25, she set up Aubrey Peck as an organiser of "luxury automotive events and adventures", and soon she decided to capitalise on her passion for restomodding alongside that.