The Harrison automotive team of, left to right, Simon Harrison, Pete Rouillard and Karl Luffman with a Lamborghini Diablo, the type of car they specialise in repairing. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 0810281)

A CAR restoration, repair and servicing company is celebrating after reaching its fifth year in business.

Harrison Automotive, which was known as Retro Resto until late 2007, specialises in work on classic and modified vehicles.

‘When I set up I heard lots of stories of people sending their cars off the island for specialist repairs and restoration work, so one of the aims was to provide these services on the island without the hassle of overseeing a project elsewhere,’ said owner Simon Harrison.

‘In fact, now we have established our reputation, we have had customers from England send their cars here to us to repair.’

Five years ago, Mr Harrison worked on his own out of a disused vinery site and concentrated on classic air-cooled Volkswagens.

Due to increased demand, he moved twice in two years before consulting Peter Walters, of the Guernsey Enterprise Agency, for advice and securing new purpose-built premises at Les Monmains Business Park in Le Hure Mare Road, Vale, in June of last year.

In April 2008, he was joined by Pete Rouillard, who heads the modified and performance side of things, and more recently Karl Luffman, who joined from Automation in South Wales and is an experienced panel beater and paint sprayer.

Mr Harrison himself is very experienced. He left Guernsey in 2003 to work for Priorywood Auto Re-finishers in Southend, a company that specialised in crash repair.

He then joined Hamiltons in Essex where he was in charge of the fabrication and body repair side of restorations, before heading off to Spain and the BBT HotRod workshop in Alicante, where he was involved in building their own versions of the VW Roadster for the Spanish market.