Driving ambition
The Motorist is far more than just a vanity project for car-lover Simon Spinks – it is a labour of love and a paradise for petrol heads. Catherine Scott meets him and the head chef of its new restaurant The Arnage. Main pictures by James Hardisty.
Simon Spinks was just four years old when he fell in love with cars. “My grandad had Alvis cars and I remember being about four years old and sitting on his knee and being allowed to steer one of them – I’ve still got that car.” Since then cars have been a big influence in Spinks’s life. It was while making a kit car with his dad that he came up with the idea for the innovative mattress pocket spring that once sold would seal the future for the fifth generation family business, Harrison Spinks. He has also gone on to collect ‘two or three nice cars’ and loves nothing more than tinkering with them and then taking them for a drive.
But he struggled to find anywhere in the North of England to show off his cars to like-minded people. The Leeds businessman, who also owns Spinks Events, bought a disused unit on an airfield near Sherburn in Elmet four years ago.
“I bought it to make (bed) springs as the factory in Leeds was hitting capacity, “explains Spinks, who tries to locally source as much as he can for his mattresses. from drawing the wire for the unique spring technology to growing natural fillings on their own 300-acre farm in Tadcaster.
But while planning how to renovate the old unit, Spinks hit on another idea.
“I had been thinking for some time that we needed somewhere in the North where people with nice cars could come together. I thought we’d put a bit of a workshop in as well.” He decided to organise a meeting of car enthusiasts on his site at Sherburn one Sunday and put on a wagon serving coffee and sausage sandwiches and advertised it on social media,.
“Three hundred and fifty cars turned up. And the numbers have been growing ever since. On the last the last Bank Holiday they have more than 1,200 cars. I thought we’d get petrol heads like me.
“But what surprised me was the number of families coming for a day out to show off their pride and joy and to appreciate other people’s. We have everything from Ferraris to an old Fiesta. More people were gathered round the Fiesta than the Ferrari – even the Ferrari owner. It really doesn’t matter what your car is.”
He created a garage so that people could have their cars worked on and soon realised that he needed more than a small food van to cater for the hungry masses that attended the events every Sunday. And so he added a cafe.
“Nothing was planned,” admits Spinks. “It all grew pretty organically from the demand as we perceived it.” The cafe also was an ideal place to show off some of his cars. But also those that people wanted to sell.
“The cars in the showroom change, which in turn encourage people to visit more often. My aim is for people to come into the cafe for a burger and leave with an MG,” he jokes. The Motorist is now part of Harrison
Spinks Events, which also includes the Grade 2 listed Hornington Manor, The Oakwood at Ryther and more recently wedding venue Carlton Manor.
“There is a great team behind The Motorist,”