The specialist: Auto RARA

By Charlie Calderwood

| 6 Aug 2025

Classic & Sports Car – The specialist: Auto RARA

It means ‘rare car’ in Italian, Auto RARA, but this rapidly expanding Derbyshire restoration company isn’t marking itself out by the peculiarity of the cars on which it works.

Instead, it is bringing a bullish change of attitude to the restoration sector – especially in the world of generalists – by bringing the professionalism of modern motorsport to an industry that has often run itself in a very traditional manner.

“Customers often have their own businesses, they are professional people,” says co-founder David Stubbs, “but they were having to accept things with their pride and joy they wouldn’t put up with in their working lives.”

Auto RARA founders David Stubbs (on left) and Chris Tye, with the company’s own Peugeot 205 GTI and a Subaru Impreza P1 bodyshell

David, a successful businessman, met Chris Tye while building his EP3 Honda Civic Type R race car.

Both car fanatics off track, they devised a plan to bring greater technology, transparency and customer service to the sector.

What does that actually mean? Auto RARA’s technicians take photos of everything they do, and builds are tracked on an online portal through which the customer can follow progress, interact with the technicians and message them directly.

Clients also take part in monthly workshop meetings, when they are updated with their car’s progress through its various stages.

The bodyshop is one of four Auto RARA sites

In some ways, this approach is just a formalised version of the relationship a customer might already have with the friendliest and most communicative small-scale restorers, but here it is guaranteed and provided via a 24-hour-accessible portal.

“It was lumpy at the start,” recalls David.

Auto RARA’s mechanics were being asked to be client-facing in a way most hadn’t experienced before: “This wouldn’t be a disruptive path if everybody came in and said ‘Oh, this is nice and easy.’”

Auto RARA’s online portal allows customers to follow the progress of their classic car in real time and communicate with technicians

Some early hires lasted only a few weeks, but those who stayed have come to enjoy the feedback: “They no longer think ‘Oh goodness, why does the customer want this?’,” says David.

“They understand why, because the customer is having a direct dialogue with them, and the clients often come back and say ‘thank you’ directly, too.”

Beyond the customer experience, David has also focused on bringing more professionalism to the company’s internal processes, from 21st-century job-management procedures, including check sheets following every project like a patient in a hospital, to high-tech data gathering in the paint booth, where air particles are measured and paint nibs counted.

A Volvo 1800ES in build at classic car specialist Auto RARA in Derbyshire, UK

Having started with just one building in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, in February 2022, the Auto RARA business has now expanded to four separate units.

Two are inside Derby’s Great Northern Classics site, while the company’s new bodyshop is just down the road.

A six-week nut-and-bolt restoration on the firm’s own Peugeot 205 GTI was the first end-to-end job, and a test of each department.

A Bentley Continental (right) and a Mercedes-Benz W136 await attention in Auto RARA’s trim shop

During our visit, a Lamborghini 400GT sits on a rotisserie at the start of a full restoration, while its interior is worked on simultaneously in the separate trimming studio.

“We’re pretty privileged, I think, to be able to take on that car so early in our company’s life cycle,” says David.

“But it’s the technology, reporting and transparency that the customer saw which made them select us.”

Smaller jobs are welcome, too: a W136 Mercedes-Benz sits alongside the Lamborghini’s disassembled interior, its trim undergoing repairs in situ.

Auto RARA’s work on a Jaguar XK150 nears completion

Elsewhere, there is the repainted but otherwise bare bodyshell of a Subaru Impreza P1, plus a Bentley Continental, a Ford Escort Harrier, a Volvo 1800ES with half of its side cut off and a nearly finished Jaguar XK150.

“We’re trying not to be genre- or brand-specific,” confirms David.

“We come to work every day and see this huge spread of cars. It’s a real pleasure to be able to put that together.”

Images: Jack Harrison