My Life & Cars – Alec Howarth, MD, The Motorist
From field-racing MOT failures to running a popular venue for petrolheads, this Alfa addict explains how cars steered his career
'I’ve known the chairman of The Motorist, Simon Spinks, for 12 or 13 years,’ explains Alec Howarth. ‘We’re both into cars big time and do European car trips with this group of friends that we call the Eee‑by Gumball, a pun on the Gumball Rally, but it’s done very much to a Yorkshire-budgeted value. It started with us doing the Stelvio and the Furka Pass; we’ve done quite a few going down into Europe: through the Alps down to Monaco, the route of Mille Miglia, across the Millau bridge into the Pyrenees; we’ve done the Czech Republic and this year we’re off to Slovenia.
‘So that’s how I first met Simon. Back then I worked for a company called Hand Picked Hotels that dealt with weddings. He’d just bought a farm, Hornington Manor, a beautiful Georgian manor house out at Bolton Percy, so I came out, had a look and thought it would make an ideal wedding venue. Over a few years he added a couple more wedding venues and then got involved in this plot of land here,’ Howarth says, gesturing to the impressive venue that is The Motorist today.
Caffeine & Machine may have popularised the automotive meeting place in the south, but as it established itself, up north another venue was evolving and developing, demonstrating that there’s more than one way to satisfy those who enjoy wheeled machinery and a hot beverage. The Motorist is purpose-built, hosts regular meets for car and bike enthusiasts, and offers far more than just a muster point for enthusiasts.
‘Originally it was just a car workshop, then Simon got a catering van and two or three people turned up and had coffees on Saturday and Sunday, then four or five, 10 or 12… So it started literally with a horsebox catering van doing greasy burgers and coffee, in a very entrepreneurial fashion.’ The original plan was that the workshop would be joined by a high-end car storage facility, but the social side kept on growing and so they built the Blue Train Café. Then because the garage part was growing and taking on restorations, the café was converted into a body and paint shop. In early 2022 the wooden-framed ‘Arnage’ section was built, not simply replacing the café but adding a restaurant, showroom and conference facilities.
Not long after its opening, Howarth was on another Eee-by Gumball rally with Spinks. ‘One of my quotes that Simon always quotes back at me is I’d always said “keep it simple”; sell the wedding space, get outside caterers in, mop up afterwards and sell another one. Don’t get involved in food and beverage. On this trip Simon said, “You know what you told me to do? Great advice.” Then he added, “You know what you told me not to do? I’ve gone and done it and it’s a bloody nightmare. I need somebody to sort it out.”
‘At the time I was working down in London as UK regional director for Park Plaza Hotels. I love cars, I grew up in the motor trade, which Simon knew. He said, “Why don’t you come and work for me?” Thirty-odd years in hospitality, why am I even thinking about this? A bit of a discussion with my wife – who is from these parts – and next thing I know I’m up here.’
If you were looking for the source of Howarth’s passion for cars and Alfas in particular, it’s there in his formative years. Howarth’s parents owned a garage as he grew up. They’d worked abroad in Nigeria and on their return his father, an engineer, bought a village garage in Bodenham, near Leominster. It was called Saffron Cross Garage and it sold petrol, had a workshop and was also a dealer for Fiats and Alfas. (Howarth now has a daughter called Saffron.)
The garage did MOTs too, and when there was a failure, Howarth would get to hoon the condemned car around the field at the back. ‘From about eight years old I was kicking around in Triumph Heralds – anything that was rear-drive was the one, you know. If you ended up with a Maxi or something you felt a bit disappointed! When I was 16, 17, 18, I built a couple of kit cars with my dad. The first was a Sylva Leader. Dad had a Vauxhall Firenza that was rotted to hell – the perfect donor! Then we built a VW-based Eagle SS, which was just a rebodied Beetle with a fancy gullwing-door body. Completely useless, but when you’re 17 you feel pretty cool. I was very fortunate that insurance was never an issue because, of course, I was on the garage policy.
‘The first car I had when I passed my test was a Mk1 2-litre Capri. After that, it was a Datsun 180B SSS with a dog-leg first gear and an 1800 engine. That was the first car I did over 100mph in,’ he says with a grin. ‘Both pretty cool cars that I wish I still had now. I think I broke my father’s heart when I went out and bought myself a Golf GTI. He wasn’t into his Vee Dubs in quite the same way, so I was rebelling a bit. I had a Scirocco GTX after the Golf, then I fell into Alfas and I’ve had Alfas ever since.’
The family business wasn’t going to be Howarth’s future: his parents sold the garage when he was 18. He studied accountancy but after qualifying realised very quickly that the prospect of doing that for the rest of his days was sending him into cold shivers, which is why he drifted into hospitality and hotels. ‘I worked as financial controller for a hotel in Stow-on-the-Wold and fell in love with hospitality.’ Jobs in the hotel business took him all over the UK – London, East Sussex, Cardiff, Norwich – and overseas too, as far as South America and the Galapagos Islands.
There were very few roads in the Galapagos Islands but over the years Howarth has managed to own about 20 Alfas. As well as the 4C, an ex-press car he’s owned since 2019, he currently has a 1972 Fiat 500 and a 2010s Giulietta Cloverleaf. ‘One of the best that I’ll probably regret getting rid of was a 156 GTA Sportwagon. With that Busso engine it was just divine. And I had a Brera Spider 3.2, which again was a beautiful-looking car, one of the best-looking cars ever made. Dynamically rubbish though, a big heavy thing, and that GM-derived 3.2 engine was… well, it was no Busso. I’ve had GTVs too, as in the wedgy, “916” GTV and GTV Spider, and a 145 Cloverleaf, another car I wish I still had…
‘I wish I’d kept them all, as we all do. I certainly wish I’d kept the Mk1 Golf. It was Mars Red, Y-reg, one of the first 1800s, not the later hydraulic valve one, but I just loved it. Mind, I did what every kid does: lowered it, put wider wheels on and completely ruined it. Everybody talks about the GTI being the first hot hatch but I say the Alfasud was. I had a 1.5 Ti that was an absolute joy… but it just fell to pieces in six months.
Howarth describes his job at The Motorist as ‘getting the offer right’, and that starts with attracting an audience. ‘We don’t get passing trade; we’re at the scraggy end of an industrial park near Sherburn-in-Elmet,’ he says. It’s true; picking your way from the M1 near Leeds to The Motorist takes you past a number of big, bland industrial warehouses before you pop out into the countryside again and then round a corner to see Sherburn Airfield and the impressive buildings that form The Motorist.
It’s an automotive oasis, stylish from the outside, but the timber-framed Arnage section is even better from the inside. Upstairs is an airy and subtly automotive-themed space (carpeted with ‘tyre marks’) and downstairs is the restaurant. In the lobby area is Spinks’s genuine London-Mexico Mk1 Escort, and there are bi-fold doors allowing cars and bikes to be wheeled in and displayed.
What makes The Motorist different to other venues is that it offers a broader range of attractions and reasons to visit, says Howarth. ‘There are three major angles. We’ve got the workshop and body shop, and we do car storage off-site, then we’ve got the food and beverage, and then we do meetings and events. It’s a great venue but it’s got to be commercially able to stand on its own two feet. We’re a five-day/two-day business. As such, it’s getting the right attraction and the right crowd at the weekend. Unlike certain other auto-themed venues, we don’t charge for entry; we like to be free for all and inclusive.’
In the summer the calendar has regular events. On a Wednesday it’s ‘Not Just Wheels & Wings’, for bikes, supercars, classics, modern daily drivers and more, on Thursday it’s the classics-orientated ‘Bikes & Bonnets’ and on Friday it’s either ‘Meet & Eat’ or ‘Curry & Cars’. Sunday is normally ‘Coffee & Cars’ first thing, followed by a ‘fairly prolific’ Sunday lunch trade. Saturday Socials are much more varied and can attract 500 or 600 cars – there’s dry parking for 400 and a field for overflow.
‘We’ve done rally-inspired days, Italian days, German days, “Best of British” days, classics and commercials, four-wheel drive…’ says Howarth. ‘We did a high-mileage heroes day which was incredibly well supported. I think the winning car was a T-registered Granada V6 that had done 357,000 miles.’
There used to be a showroom where they sold cars, mainly classics, but that became a bit of a museum attraction, says Howarth. Now it’s ‘The Store’, a shop area like you’d find at a garden centre or farm shop. ‘A good idea’s worth copying, isn’t it?’ says Howarth. Here you’ll find things with a motoring theme or connection, such as James May gin and Clarkson’s Hawkstone lager, which ‘flew out the door’ when it first arrived. There’s also team clothing and merchandise, Lego, Hot Wheels and all sorts of other motoring-themed goodies.
‘One of the things that really excites me about The Motorist compared to a lot of other motoring community hubs is that we do the oily stuff as well,’ says Howarth. ‘We’ve got the workshop, we’ve got the body shop. About 60 per cent of the work that goes to the workshop is older style restoration work and we’re looking to push that, specialising in British marques and high-quality resprays – we’ve had Ferraris and Rolls-Royces through our paint shop. We do the regular diagnostics, MOTs and so forth as well.
‘We’ve done collaborations too. We did a Bangers and Cash day, you know, the TV programme; we’ve had a number of Restoring Classics cars through our workshops. That day was just ridiculous. It was so oversubscribed we couldn’t cope – we had 1200 cars on site, the largest we’ve had. We’ve worked with Wheeler Dealers too, Mike Brewer.
There are collaborations on midweek evenings as well, with car clubs visiting regularly. ‘Next week we’ve got Aston Martin car club here, then we’ve got a ride out for a Ferrari Owners’ Club with a breakfast in a couple of Saturdays’ time. We’ve had a lot of main dealers that have done either training sessions or product launches here, pop-up showrooms, but we’ve also hosted a wedding, a 60th birthday party, a funeral wake…’
The evolution of The Motorist isn’t done yet, as there are plans to add a fourth dimension, with the addition of a hotel on the seven-acre plot. For other motoring venues, that might be a step too far, but for Howarth and The Motorist, it feels like a natural extension.
This story was first featured in evo issue 322.
