From a £200 Beetle at 14 to The Parts Shop

I’ve spent over 20 years working in the digital industry. My background has always been rooted in design, paired with a deep focus on web development and software. Whether designing an interface or building backend logic, I’ve always cared about the balance between how something looks, how it feels, and how it works.

Whenever I stepped away from the screen, that continued into my garage. If you’d like to find out a bit more about me and follow the builds in real time, a bit more can be seen over on Instagram at @ry4nh.

My car journey started when I was 14, when I bought a rusted out VW Beetle for £200 from a friend of the family.

The Early Years: Mending, Customising, and Mistakes

That £200 Beetle was my rolling classroom. By the time I turned 17, I had spent three years fixing it up, painting it, lowering it, and understanding it through trial, error, and a lot of skinned knuckles.

That Beetle led to VW Campers, and eventually to a VW Corrado in Blackberry—a rare factory colour… like so many cars we let go over the years, that’s one I genuinely wish I’d kept.

From there, my car choices took a few unpredictable detours 🙂:

Around that time, I bought an imported Renault Clio 172. It was quick (for me!), and I had my first track days in it but it wasn’t for me, so that was sold.

The Air-Cooled Era and the Discovery of Shared DNA

About 17 years ago, I tracked down a 1965 Porsche 912 that was sitting as a neglected, non-running mess.

Tackling that 912 opened up an entire world of the early German cars. Alongside the 912, my workshop saw a '63 Beetle Cabriolet, a '63 Double-Cab Split Screen Transporter, and a 1972 Porsche 914.

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"Working on those cars side-by-side was an eye-opener. When you strip down a 914 or an early 912 next to a Split Screen or a Beetle, you quickly see how much is shared underneath."

Workhorses, Modern Tech Detours, and Utility

For daily driving and workshop duties, I’ve always needed vehicles built for utility.

I daily-drove a Toyota Hilux Surf for years. It was virtually indestructible, incredibly capable, and completely dependable. Selling that truck was another genuine mistake—in fact, "I Should Have Never Sold That One" is something almost every enthusiast says at some point (so much so that we’re actually printing it on an upcoming workshop t-shirt).

That Surf made way for a black Land Rover Defender 110. It was great but in true Defender fashion, it was rattly, unrefined, and constantly kept you on your toes with spanners in hand.

After the Defender, I took a detour and bought a second-hand Nissan GT-R (R35). The performance was incredible, but ownership lasted barely two months before I sold it. It was an astonishing piece of engineering, but it served as a reminder of what modern cars have become: machines wrapped in layers of software and proprietary electronics where you can’t touch, understand, or service anything yourself. It just wasn't for me.

I replaced it with a Nissan Navara D40 (quite a change!), which remains my trusty workhorse today. It tows, it works hard, it's dependable, and when something needs attention, you can actually fix it yourself on the driveway.

Where I Am Today: 40-Year Milestones and Full Restorations

Today, my workshop time is focused on two major long-term projects:

Bringing Digital Systems to an Old Problem

After two decades designing for digital, looking at the automotive spares world with technical eyes became impossible to ignore. When you need an obscure part, you're usually met with:

• Unfair Marketplace Cuts: Mainstream auction sites taking 15% out of your sale while treating rare heritage components like disposable appliances.
• Fragile Search Systems: Clunky interfaces and search engines that fail if a part number has a dash in the wrong place.
• Main Dealer Markups: Main dealers charging exorbitant markups for components simply because they sit in a luxury manufacturer's box, completely hiding the fact that the exact same part exists on a mainstream vehicle for a fraction of the cost.

Today's technology shouldn't just be used to push disposable gadgets. We can use modern software, AI, OCR scanning, and intelligent cross-matching to solve practical mechanical headaches:

Anyway, that’s more than enough about me. I just wanted to introduce myself properly, because I’ve always felt it’s nice to know who’s actually standing behind something rather than dealing with a faceless platform.

At the end of the day, I’m in this simply because I love cars, I love the mechanical honesty of keeping them going, and I genuinely love meeting the people who share that same obsession.

The Parts Shop is built as an authentic community for all of us—the fixers, custodians, and late-night garage builders.

If you ever fancy swapping stories about an old project, sharing an idea, or just having a chat about what’s sitting in your garage, my inbox is always open.