THE FACES – Simon Charlesworth

DID I HAVE a burning passion to see my name in print? To become a celebrated chap of words? To get a reputation that was up there, jostling amid the grey-templed motoring fraternity...? Nah, not really – I just sort of fell into it.

    If things had gone according to Plan A then I would be earning mega-squids, sporting a pair of unusually minimalist spectacles, have a wardrobe stuffed to the gills with polar-neck jumpers and an unhealthy collection of Kraftwerk LPs – but ultimately automotive design wasn’t for me, the buzz had gone.

   I remember being in a queue at the university canteen with someone getting all excited about how inspiration was everywhere, picking up a spoon and starting to talk about how this would provide a great basis for a car’s cabin. All I could think was ‘cock’ – I was so bored, that I could feel my very life starting to seep out of me.

    The move into journalism really was just a matter of putting 2+2 together and getting it right. At art college, I’d had quite a few favourable comments about the reports what I wrote and I was keen to make use of all that car knowledge which I’d accrued over the years – usually during double Geography. So I signed up to a postgraduate course in journalism and in next to no time, the buzz was back.

    My first job did suck, but I’m grateful for what it led to – even if it did involve working for a nasty bloke who resembled Trevor Eve crossed with a ferret and dressed in a suit so cheap and shiny that Swiss Tony would have thought twice.   

   A stint at the much-missed A&S Publishing followed, where I was trained up as sub-editor and worked on all sorts of stuff from 'Classic Ford' to something particularly shuddersome called 'Golf Xtreme'. I moved to Haymarket as a Deputy Editor to take the corporate dollar for a few years, working on a wide range of customer projects, before returning to A&S and helping with the early issues of 'Retro Cars' again as number two.

   I then went freelance proper and that was over five years ago now. I’m lucky enough to be able to indulge both my classic passion by contributing regularly to great mags like 'Classic & Sports Car' and 'Classic Cars', plus I can indulge my tuning fetish with the up and coming title 'Performance Tuner'.

   The launch of 'Dep-O' not only means I can have my cake and eat it, but it means we now have a home for all those quality modified classic projects which have been homeless for too long.

    When it comes to cars, I’m in the rather odd position of still owning most of the motors I’ve ever bought. The ones of interest are: my first – a 1969 GAN4 MG Midget – I bought it because I didn’t like hatchbacks and which is currently poorly with clutch pedal linkage problems.

    Despite knowing them, I gleefully broke all the car-buying rules because I got purchase fever – it was the first one I looked at and it was an unfinished project. In some ways it still is...

    My second is a MkII Golf Driver (bought because I needed something reliable – yeah right!) which handles like Vanessa Feltz wedged into a runaway shopping trolley. I never really liked it, but I’ve started to warm to it because MkIIs have all but disappeared from our roads. It will be moving into the 'Dep-O' shed shortly.

    Then there’s the latest addition, this little Honeysuckle beauty. Well, I really couldn’t resist my Leyland fixation any more and extensive plans have already been drawn up. Hell, I’ve even got my eye on something else sporting plenty of rust...

Under Close Interrogation

Who do you blame for your car addiction?
My grandfather – he encouraged it by buying me loads of Superfast Matchboxes and he even asked a bloke if I could sit in his new Bond Bug. A deeply cool motor to a kid in the Seventies.

What’s in your car stereo at the moment?
The only one that works is the modern’s – I think it’s Closer by Joy Division. Just what you need on a wet Monday morning.

Do you have any four-wheeled guilty secrets?
An ability to appreciate really misuderstood cars without being tongue in cheek, for example the Rolls-Royce Camargue, H120 Rapier, Austin 3-litre... Okay, I'll stop.

Most memorable modified motor?
Going flat out in Toby Kent’s 185bhp MkI Cortina with Toby pumping up through the dog ’box. Slammed Sarf London style, and only wearing Compomotive MLs and a coat of BRG paint. Hell it was quick.

If you were a retro motor, what would you be...?
Big Healey – it’s a hairy, straightforward, chunky-looking tool with poor ground clearance and it drinks too much.

Contact

You are most welcome to get in touch via simon@dep-o.co.uk - with the exceptions of WeightWatchers and Harriet Harmen.