Meet the Team

Nathaniel Seviour

Nathaniel (Nat) has an extensive engineering background as well as a passion for anything powered by internal combustion! After gaining a degree in mechanical engineering, he worked for several years as a Process Improvement Engineer for Timken Bearings, at their Leicestershire based steel rolling mill. Following this he was employed by Metzeler/Schlegel automotive (an automotive sealing systems manufacturer, supplying companies such as Bentley and Toyota) as Engineering Projects Manager. Nat is in charge of the fabrication and engineering side of Retropower, and is more than capable of taking an automotive ‘dream’ and turning it into carefully designed and perfectly executed piece of engineering.

Callum Seviour

Equally fanatical about cars, Callum (Cal) brings the ‘artistic’ element to the table. As well as being an experienced mechanic he has a history in music production and sound engineering, as well as serving many years on the management team at a large hotel & conference centre, something that gives Cal customer service manners not often associated with the automotive trade! Cal has also always been a dedicated petrolhead, owning and restoring dozens of unusual cars over the years, as well as helping Nat with his projects along the way. Cal is in charge of the design, assembly and wiring side of Retropower, and his eye for detail and vision for that ‘perfect’ combination of old and new ensures our vehicles look as good as they go!

Gary Thompson

Gaz joined us at the start of 2011 and has a wealth of bodywork knowledge. He has over 15 years experience in the automotive bodywork trade both as a painter and, prior to starting at Retropower, working for a bodyshop products supplier. This has given Gaz an invaluable, in-depth knowledge of paints and bodyshop products. Gaz is responsible for the bodyshop side of Retropower, ensuring every car leaves us with show-winning paintwork!

Tom Baldwin

Tom is the latest addition to the Retropower team having started in the Spring of 2021, and he’s already made himself indispensable through his comprehensive fabrication skills. Tom’s background is metalwork through and through having cut his teeth at Martin Robey Group, one of the UK’s preeminent manufacturer and supplier of Jensen and Jaguar panels. He’s therefore well-versed in the art of tin-bashing, skills he’s already brought to bear on, amongst others, the Jensen CV-8 and the Land Cruiser. We look forward to showing you what he’s capable of in the weeks, months and years to come, so watch this space!

Stuart Gunn

Joining us mid 2012, Stu brings a lifetime of panel beating experience to the table. Stu started his career at Research Garage in 1979 as an accident repair panel beater. He subsequently took a position at Custom Chrome exhausts as a fabricator but later returned to Research until we took him on in 2012. 35 years of automotive metalwork experience combined with a passion for modified classics (Stu’s 4×4 V8 powered Midget is well known in MG circles) makes Stu an invaluable member of our superb team.

Dean McConnell

Dean is our upholsterer and designer/illustrator. His background as a shoe designer gives him an exceptional eye for detail and in depth knowledge of textile properties. This combined with his life-long love of anything powered by internal combustion makes him an ideal additional to our team. Dean’s artistic ability means we can present concept drawings to our customers on a level you’d expect of a mainstream car manufacturer.

Adam Manns

A qualified engineer and the individual in charge of the Retropower assembly hall, Adam’s keen eye for detail has proved an invaluable resource in the rebuild of dozens of our projects and has been brought to bear on builds as diverse as the Murray Mk1 Escort and the Chevette rally car.

An old Ford devotee of the most committed sort, Adam owns a Mk2 Escort and a Sapphire Cosworth at present, the former having followed him back from Australia some years ago! Both are exquisitely built and beautifully finished – testament to his aforementioned eye for detail.

James Manns

James joined his brother as part of our dedicated assembly team in the summer of 2019, which in practice means he’s tasked with finalising much of the custom engineering underpinning all our projects. James comes to us off the back of an extended spell at a specialist engineering firm charged with CNC turning key components for aeronautical giants Boeing and Airbus, meaning he’s well placed to tackle the completion of bespoke ‘Benzes’ and Alfas.

James’s passion for old cars extends beyond the hours of 8am to 5.30pm and if reflected in his own fleet, one entirely in keeping with the Retropower ethos. A Lexus LS400 daily is merely the tip of the daily driven iceberg; James also has his John Hancock atop the V5C of a Peugeot 205 XS and, in line with his brother, a Mk2 Escort, a car soon to be powered by the Zetec from a Focus ST170.

Scott Aitken

Our junior panel beater joined us in 2017, and despite having a hard act to follow is doing an outstanding job. The star of many of our popular ‘Metalwork Minute’ videos, Scott’s abilities are all the more remarkable when you consider he’d barely touched a welder or a ball-peen hammer before joining Retropower. Those days are firmly in the rear-view mirror nowadays of course, and there really isn’t much in the sphere of metalworking that Scott can’t turn his hand to these days, as evidenced by the Morris Minor’s custom front and rear bulkheads.

Rich Irving

It’s probably easier to list the jobs Rich hasn’t done than to compile those he has, though a condensed version must include a spell building boats in the Caribbean and Turkey, a crossing of the Pacific, and perhaps most bizarrely of all, time spent sheep farming on the Falkland Islands. All that experience working with marine composites (including pre-impregnated carbon fibre), not forgetting the general day-to-day engineering that’s part and parcel of any ocean faring voyage, means that Rich is both talented and versatile, more than capable of solving automotive problems as and when they arise.

John Malik

John comes to us from Stealth Racing via JLR’s protype department and has proved an invaluable addition to our Assembly Hall team. Being charged with completing Retropower builds demands a varied set of skills ranging from general mechanic-ing to precision engineering, and as such it’s a truly multifaceted job role – one John’s taken to like the proverbial duck to water.

That John should be so comfortable turning his hand to everything and anything shouldn’t be all that surprising given his background in the car trade, chiefly a sixteen-year spell at one of the UK’s foremost independent VW Group specialists, Stealth Racing. Spending so long up to his elbows fixing and improving Wolfsburg’s finest has left John with a formidable ability to identify and solve mechanical maladies of all sorts, though it must be said that forced inducted engines (and turbocharged in particular) remain a speciality.

A life lived in-step with VW metal was always destined to have an influence on the cars John chooses to drive himself, and so it has proved; he’s presently in the midst of converting his trusty Corrado ‘R30’ quarter-mile-chaser (a well-known car in straight-line circles) to a 20v track car. We’ll be sure to bring you further details of how he gets on in the weeks and months to come.

Steve Coulton 

Steve is the latest addition to the Retropower paint and bodywork team and comes to us off the back of an impressively varied career, one that has seen him tasked with prepping some of the country’s most advanced race cars for paint. Indeed, Steve’s career to this point in time reads like a condensed ‘who’s who’ of Britain’s ‘Motorsport Valley,’ with McLaren, Red Bull and Haas F1 all featuring prominently. Steve has even tasted vicarious Olympic glory through his work, having had a hand in preparing and painting the bicycles ridden to such brilliant effect by Team GB in 2016.

In addition to being a dedicated paint pro with a keen eye for detail Steve also suffers from that most endearing (and laudable) of petrolhead afflictions, namely an inability to stop himself buying retro cars! A pair of Vauxhall Chevettes, a Bedford CF camper with a ‘snap-off’ clutch cable, an Isuzu Trooper and a Land Rover Discovery (both suitably attired with hard-won mud), a ‘drifty’ S14 and a Nova: all have Steve’s name atop their V5s at the time of writing, and all are modified to some degree.

Jamie Arkle

Jamie cut his teeth working on the editorial staff of Classic Ford and Performance Vauxhall magazines, followed by a brief freelance career writing for the likes of Motor Sport, Fast Ford, Retro Cars and Pacenotes. A spell at an automotive PR firm followed, before Jamie joined the Retropower team in June of 2018. His tasks consist of social media, website upkeep, PR and various written tasks, meaning he’ll almost certainly wax lyrical about your own particular project should you opt to entrust it to Retropower. Jamie is also responsible for shooting, editing and producing the weekly ‘Retropower Uncut’ video series.