Our Location

Unit 4a Binns Close,
Off Torrington Avenue,
Coventry
West Midlands UK
CV4 9TB

In the beginning………

1969! What a year. Jaguar’s fabulous XJ6 had been out for barely 12 months and the E-type still had only six cylinders. Nostalgia had yet to become fashionable. The sixties were coming to a close and the motoring world was looking forward. What use were old cars except to a few eccentrics? Weren’t they just seen as clutter, dated and without style?

Perhaps, but Coventry Auto Components’ founder Trevor Scott-Worthington has been climbing in, out and under cars for over 55 years and always loved older machinery. Cars are in the family blood; his father owned a busy garage in North London.

Trevor started work with Standard Triumph, with a five year engineering apprenticeship and ended up ‘apprentice of the year’ in 1962. His hobby was rebuilding what we now call classic cars, and following up a Classic Jaguar Association advertisement in Motor Sport, he teamed up with some friends in the US to help locate spares for SS Jaguars. When this early enterprise finished, Trevor branched out into XK’s – which soon became a passion. When the parts started to migrate into the house (the garage was full) and eventually under the bed, it was not surprising that Trevor received an ultimatum (from the wife, Glenys) – close down or move the parts out!

So Trevor moved the spares to nearby farm buildings. It was about this time that some Jaguar dealers were deciding that old stock was not good to keep. Trevor discovered one such dealer and together with the late (and sadly missed) David Barber, they bought the lot. Trevor said, “I told them anything from chassis number C’ to whatever number was mine. Anything before was David’s.”

In that hoard was almost everything imaginable and Trevor had a full scale business on his hands. The more spares he sold, the more he bought and so the mushrooming process continued. So in 1988, after 19 years of running the business himself, Trevor took on his first employed staff. But old factory stock diminished and re-manufacture became a priority. Working with specialist companies,Trevor commissioned replacements, though it was sometimes a problem to get exact copies. With modern technology the process is much better now. Then in 1991 ,with the farm buildings reaching overload, he moved to his first unit, in Portway Close, off Torrington Avenue in the old ‘heart’ of Coventry’s industrial area.

1994 saw Stuart’s arrival and they never looked back! In 1999 they moved a short distance down the road, into Binns close and a far bigger building (now straining at the seams with their massive stock) and they have now clocked up 26 years there, with Stuart MacNeill’s guiding hands firmly at the helm, more than capably managing the company for the last 30+ years (and he still loves doing it!) There are even whispered rumours that he’s a bit famous in some far-flung countries (but he may have just mis-heard infamous?) You can even find his many published articles on here and also see him chatting away in the company’s YouTube channel on that new-fangled Internet. Who knows what the future holds…..