Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode #009 - Georgia Peck - Founder of Aubrey Peck & Aubrey
204 Plays2 years ago
Today's guest is Georgia Peck, the founder and owner of both Aubrey Peck & Aubrey, two companies named after her Grandfather and idol, Henry Aubrey Peck.
Aubrey Peck provides a range of services in the luxury automotive sector such as event planning, automotive adventures, driving tours, marketing, public relations, product launches and much more. If you require anything in the luxury automotive sector, Aubrey Peck is your port of call.
Alongside this, Georgia owns Aubrey, a bespoke vehicle commissioning service which meticulously restores and upgrades classic vehicles to the buyers requests, to provide a completely bespoke, one-off vehicle to suit the customers every need. Whether it be a go-anywhere land rover for the Swiss Alps, or an SUV to cater for everyday life in the city, every detail is designed with the customer in mind.
In this episode, we discuss what it takes to plan and run a luxury driving tour, why her grandfather was such an inspiration to Georgia, why owning a pre-war car is the ultimate daily driver, what makes Aubrey unique amongst a a field of custom and aftermarket vehicle builders, what skills Georgia has found beneficial when working with ultra high net worth individuals, why everyone should read about heroic women in motorsport such as the enigmatic Dorothy Leavitt, and much more.
Recommended
![S2:EP 2 [VIDEO] - Tom Foxley: Mental Fitness Coach - "We grow by pushing our boundaries, take risks, and then coming back to a state of safety" image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/63de7bc76bdba1bc512995ab/611e3951-187c-4d9e-bef1-1079ac0ea610.png)
Transcript
Introduction to Georgia Peck and Aubrey Peck and Aubrey
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to perspectives. Today's guest is Georgia Peck. Georgia is the founder and owner of both Aubrey Peck and Aubrey. Aubrey Peck provides a range of services in the luxury automotive sector, such as event planning, automotive adventures, driving tours, marketing, PR, product launches, and much more. Chances are if you require anything at all in the luxury automotive sector, Aubrey Peck is your port of call.
00:00:30
Speaker
Alongside this, Georgia owns a bespoke vehicle commissioning service which meticulously restores and upgrades classic vehicles to the buyer's request to provide a completely bespoke, one-off vehicle to suit the customer's every need.
00:00:45
Speaker
whether it be a go anywhere Land Rover designed for the Swiss Alps or an SUV to cater for everyday life in the city. Every detail is designed with the customer in mind. In this episode, we discuss what it takes to plan and run a luxury driving tour
00:01:01
Speaker
why her grandfather was such an inspiration to Georgia, her vision for both Aubrey and Aubrey Peck, what makes Aubrey unique amongst a field of custom and aftermarket vehicle builders, what skills Georgia has found beneficial when working with ultra-high and high net worth individuals, why everyone should read about heroic women in motorsports such as the enigmatic Dorothy Levitt, and much more.
Georgia's Automotive Journey and Inspirations
00:01:26
Speaker
So, without further ado, Georgia Peck.
00:01:51
Speaker
Georgia Peck, thank you very much for coming on the show. Hello. Well, thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:02:01
Speaker
So with all my guests I'd like to start with a little bit of an introduction So obviously some people may not be familiar with who you are and what you do So I don't know if you can just give us a little bit of sort of history of Georgia Peck and sort of what you do in the industry or at the moment
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah so I mean essentially I grew up in the countryside. I had a father who loved cars and that was passed down by my grandfather. So growing up I was very much the tomboy of the family. All of my life was spent in the workshop with my dad tinkering with old cars and
00:02:33
Speaker
sort of bombing around in them which was my idea of heaven and I dabbled in a number of different industries over the years from property and fashion and luxury lifestyle and then I came back to what I truly love which is old cars
00:02:53
Speaker
And now I've got two companies. So one of them is Albury Peck and we do everything, it's all automotive. We do everything from branding to marketing PR, predominantly automotive events, which are really good fun. So that's everything from rallies, product launches, private experiences.
Innovative Vehicle Projects: Retro 70s Design
00:03:15
Speaker
And we sort of do everything in between really. Really you need a website built or a logo designed. It's kind of
00:03:22
Speaker
If we can't do it we'll find someone that can do it for you which is quite nice and the other company which I set up just over a year ago is called Aubrey and both companies named after my grandfather who was Harry Aubrey Peck
00:03:37
Speaker
And Aubrey, we build, bespoke, all by fours. So we only do it on commission and clients will come to us and say, I'd love, I don't know, an old Lamb Rover for the mountains in Switzerland. And then we will build them their dream vehicle, which is something I love more than any other aspect of the business, to be honest, because it's where I think I can be most creative. So yeah, I'm really, really loving outside of it at the moment.
00:04:05
Speaker
It's always like a blank canvas, isn't it? With the bespoke element. I've seen you've done... Merle was talking in one of the previous episodes about the work you did on the Wine Bar bloggers. I've seen the pictures, it looks unbelievable what you've done with the interior and stuff like the first-class 70s lounge-esque, I think he said the design brief was.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the design brief was kind of like come up with a random concept and make it work as I'm sure you realize running style is very eclectic, very retro. I love that thing too and I had Covid one week and so I was locked in the house and from start to finish we designed the entire bath in one week and the most amazing team put it all together. We've got you know leopard front carpet and
00:04:52
Speaker
1960s bars and all the glassware and velvet. It's very, very, it's sort of like a class of string fellas in the 60s.
Family Influence: Humor and Creativity in Custom Vehicles
00:05:02
Speaker
yeah i saw like it was also like playboy-esque you can kind of imagine hugh heft of sat there suffering a glass of plug so to speak on a on a saturday evening and then just going back to your grandfather harry peck you know i uh i particularly enjoyed reading about his sort of
00:05:24
Speaker
007-esque gadgets that he seemed to have in his cars and his unique ways of clearing traffic. Can you tell us a bit more about him and those sort of gadgets and how he inspired you?
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah so I mean as I said I never got to meet him sadly and that's one of the things I'm most sad about in my life but the best thing about all of it was I had my dad to tell me every night before bed instead of the typical girls stories of my little pony and princesses I want stories of my granddad which I use my hero
00:05:55
Speaker
and my dad obviously adored him too and so that made me adore him in turn and yes it was mostly I think his very wicked sense of humour which came through in all of the stories and again his love for cars so he had all sorts of old cars obviously pre-war because that was his era and my great-grandfather too
00:06:17
Speaker
And he, just I think for a good laugh, liked to tinker with all of them. So in one of his old friendlies, he had a little lever with a pair of ladies underwear which used to pop out at the back of the window, which back in the day was incredibly scandalous, but I'm sure would be quite fun. Not so much these days.
00:06:39
Speaker
And he had another car. Gosh, I think it was the MG, which he called Black Beth. And that was his favorite one that he bombed around. It was an MG, PC, I think it was the name of it. And that one, he put a little contraption in that puffed out black smoke to anyone that peeved him on roads, essentially. I'm not sure how he didn't get in trouble for that one. But yeah, I mean, he had some fun cars and I think
00:07:07
Speaker
You know, I also like to play around with my cars, not so much like that, because I'm sure I'd get arrested. But there is a job making each car your own. And I think, specifically with Aubrey, that something I've really understood is the type of customer we have, they don't need this car that we're building for them.
Personalized Vehicle Designs Reflecting Owner's Lifestyle
00:07:30
Speaker
They already have plenty of cars they could use for
00:07:33
Speaker
you know, every day of the week and every occasion this is essentially an accessory and an elevation of their lifestyle and so what I really think about when building their cars
00:07:45
Speaker
about them and if they do have a sense of humour and if we can incorporate that into the car like you know my grandfather or if they love interior design and then will really incorporate you know beautiful materials like laura piana fabrics for example you know or if they love adventure and then of course we pop all those things in there and i think it's that custom element and understanding people it's
00:08:09
Speaker
that's really important and I think I've understood that from my family is that cars are part of your character and you can build on that which is really lovely. Yeah. Are you familiar with the work of like Outlander? I think he's based in Scotland. He does similar sort of thing.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yes, so I, obviously, I'm a die-hard Land Rover girl, I love them, and before I started building my own, I did very much like, Outland was on my radar, and I think Cool and Vintage do a really beautiful job.
00:08:46
Speaker
It's obviously something out under a totally different to what we do. It's very much, I believe, quite a masculine end product. You know, it's tweed, it's big sort of hard decking and stuff. And I think that their customer, which from what I understand, it goes out to America and some, you know, in the islands, I think they do a really, really excellent job. And I think ours are more
00:09:13
Speaker
I think we just have a very different customer, to be honest, and I love what Outlander do, but yeah, just a different
00:09:20
Speaker
a different look and I understand obviously Atlander is rung by a man and has an all male team whereas our company is what I try to hire as many women as possible so it's a different a different take on the design but I think that's what makes it so special because of course there are hundreds of people that do what we do that take Land Rovers and transform them and each one it's just a matter of taste that's the only difference a kid you know
00:09:48
Speaker
Some people have no taste when you see some of the end products that come out of some of these customization companies.
Aubrey's Unique Appeal and Female Representation
00:09:53
Speaker
I mean, it's not my personal style, a lot of them, but again, they're built for a certain demographic and customer and we are selling them, but obviously very different to the type of people we build cars for and I'm quite happy about it.
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah. I would be too. I think I'd share that relief, to be honest. So the first commissioned vehicle, Albury 001, and then you've got the G Wagon, I believe, is
Launch of Albury 001 and Upcoming G-Wagon
00:10:29
Speaker
coming out next. Is that correct?
00:10:30
Speaker
Exactly. So we launched 001, which was the orange Land Rover. Everyone's probably seen far too much more flour. It's been all over the shop. We launched that at the ice in summer, it's this February or this February gone. And
00:10:45
Speaker
I had no idea how people of some sort, especially at such a prestigious concours attended by some of the finest cars in the world were going to take to a bright orange Land Rover. So I was incredibly nervous because as you can imagine it was a very expensive expedition to show you the car out there and I was very lucky to be there with Purcell.
00:11:08
Speaker
So we kitted it all out to look like an adventure car, which it is. I'm in the snow. And the reaction was really brilliant. So better than I could have expected. And the G-Wagon is almost done. It's on the final stages now. So hopefully in the next few weeks we'll be launching that too. So you should see it online. Potentially at a few events this year and next, which will be good.
00:11:35
Speaker
look forward to seeing that. Why orange? Is the net other one going to be orange as well or is there a particular reason why you chose orange? I think orange is an incredibly happy colour. Also the build it was a 1973 Land Rover and we chose
00:11:54
Speaker
It wasn't an original Land Rover, but it's a Land Rover color, but it is a period correct orange. It's very much a 70s color, and I think it's very hard not to see that car and smile. And because we were building it for Switzerland, for a really wonderful family who lived in Vilar, in the Alps,
00:12:17
Speaker
They wanted to use it all year round, and they'd had it on a farm down in Devon before they moved out to Switzerland. It used to be cream, which was the original colour, and it was absolutely rotten when we got it. I mean, there's very few parts of the Land Rover I would say are original. We had to sort of replace most things or do extensive repairs.
00:12:41
Speaker
And so we thought, you know, to give this, we're giving this car a whole new lease of life anyway, we might as well, you know, adorn it with a really joyous colour that stands out. And in the snow, it looks fantastic. And in the summer, it looks fantastic. And yeah, I think it's just a happy colour to be honest. And I think Land Rovers are happy cars and
00:13:04
Speaker
they should look that way. Yeah, for sure. It's like triggers broom then, you've only had like four handles and ten heads on it and the full nut and bolt restoration. Why? So it looks absolutely glorious. I've only seen pictures of it, I've not had the chance to see it in the flesh, but it does look outstanding from the photos that I've seen a bit.
00:13:28
Speaker
and just going back to the whole idea of doing something that's unique to, you know, bespoke and personalised how
Importance of Personalization in Vehicle Design
00:13:36
Speaker
you want it. We have a friend of our family's who's a bit like that and I always like to refer to him as a bit of a mad professor when it comes to vehicles because he's got everything from Chevrolet, El Camino's to Ditamasso Pantera's but he does these sort of
00:13:53
Speaker
even in the Pantera which is a big block Ford V8 with Italian styling supercar. He took the engine out and completely rebuilt and put this custom big block Chevrolet engine and used to drag race this thing.
00:14:13
Speaker
And I think he said to me, he said he did a hundred miles an hour in second gear or something like that. It was ridiculous. Like 750 horsepower at the wheel. And then he had this voxel crester estate. So it was like 1960s, I believe.
00:14:29
Speaker
and this thing looked like a hearse and again he did the same thing just put like a big sort of 500bhp Chevrolet engine in it and he's completely redone the interior he's done some fairly garish things with garish to my opinion but
00:14:45
Speaker
with the colouring he's done sort of purple wheels on it and he had a Lamborghini Murcielago before and he painted the rocker covers in the back bright purple so he's on the same sort of thing where he's just personalised it and he likes experimenting with colour and just sort of bringing that
00:15:05
Speaker
you know bringing the you talked about joy there and the happy color it brings sort of that happiness to to his sort of toys so yeah it's definitely color plays a massive massive part in cars i think you can it really can make or break a car in my opinion i don't know if you share the same same thought oh no absolutely and i hope you've driven this jag race there
00:15:27
Speaker
I haven't actually, no. It was always in bits. But yeah, he'd have it running for a bit and then I'd go around and it was all in bits again and he was tinkering around with something else. But yeah, I've seen videos of it and it was pretty extraordinary. I'd have to see if I can, there's probably some on YouTube somewhere I'd have to try and dig out and find. But yeah, interesting.
Challenges and Progress as a Woman in Automotive Industry
00:15:49
Speaker
So you set up Aubrey and Aubrey Peck and then I read about some of your challenges and experiences with sort of dealing with supplies, obviously being a female in quite a male-dominated industry at this time. Do you feel like there's a change in attitudes or it's shifting, the attitude is shifting a bit more towards women entering the industry now? Do you think it's getting better or do you think there's still a lot of work to be done on that sense?
00:16:14
Speaker
I mean, I don't think it's too bad to be perfectly honest. I think there's areas where maybe because I'm new to the industry or it was potentially because I'm a woman, I'll never know.
00:16:29
Speaker
There had been some issues which were very easily smoothed over. So I think that, you know, there are some truly, truly incredible women in the industry. You know, you've got people like Georgina Woods that, you know, she runs PNA Woods and her cousin Louisa too. And that's one of the most brilliant dealerships in the country. You've got Amy Shaw, who's one of the greatest female photographers.
00:16:56
Speaker
There are so many amazing women in the industry that are just keeping their heads down and doing the most incredible job and they don't need to shout about it and you're finding out about them more and more and more and hearing more and more and it's people like you to be perfectly honest that are really helping that and really giving these incredible women credit and helping drive it to be more equal which I think is really
00:17:26
Speaker
It's really wonderful. So yeah, I said people like you are really helping, so thank you. That's a plus play my part. It's not the intention. I mean, the intention really was to just follow the curiosities. And I never liked to distinguish between the two. I think if someone's doing something good with business or in an industry and they're going to be an interesting person to talk to.
00:17:47
Speaker
No, I don't I don't really see that sort of Are they a male or a female or man woman whatever? It's um, but it is yeah, it's it's good to see and I you know, it was nice to see the concourse this year and last year I know you've been quite heavily involved with the levet trophy so I don't know if you can tell us a little bit more about that in particular and who Dorothy levet was because she sounds like she's quite an inspirational sort of character as well and
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, so it was Luke at Influence Associates that does all of the PR for Hampton Court Concours.
Levitt Trophy and Dorothy Levitt's Legacy
00:18:22
Speaker
He gave me a call one day and said, look, we're thinking of doing a ladies' concours at Hampton Court. We think you'd be great. Would you like to be involved with this? And it all started from there, really. The first thing we had to think of was a name.
00:18:40
Speaker
And I was thinking and thinking of a sediful name that would appeal to all ages, of course, because I'm sure you know it's a slightly older demographic when it comes to the Concorde. And I thought of Dorothy Leavitt, British Concorde. I thought of Helenice first, but of course she's an incredible woman if you don't know her story. You must read about her. She was known as the Bugatti Queen.
00:19:06
Speaker
And then I came across Dorothy Levitt in Mordita, I'd heard of her before. And she was an Edwardian racist, and at the time she was one of the very very first female racing drivers, and she actually held the land speed record for women. And she was only titchy and had a little dog, and she used to travel around in her Deon puton with a with a silver pistol under her seat in case anyone, you know,
00:19:33
Speaker
like to ambush her. And I just thought, this is very brilliant. You know, this is, you know, well over 100, almost 120 years ago, where roads were non-existent. I don't know how much experience you have in freewall cars, but they're quite bumpy and rugged at the best of times on the roads we're used to. And she'd go from here to
00:19:55
Speaker
Liverpool in fact, you know, in these incredible cars and she was actually supposedly the inventor of the rearview mirror by accident because they didn't have her at that time and so she had a silver pocket compact mirror and when she wanted to check her opponents in races behind her she would lift it up and she would see who's catching up with that. That's amazing.
00:20:20
Speaker
Well, like Susan, I don't know, she invented or helped invent the rear-view mirror. It's quite cool. And so, yes, you're just an incredible female pioneer in the industry. And as I'm sure you know, there aren't thousands of women in the world with Concours standard cars.
00:20:39
Speaker
there's quite a few men that own large collections and then of course they bring cars back every year and that's how it works but with women we're a little bit more limited on numbers and so to help us include more women which is what it was really about in addition to Fantastic Cars was to actually you know bring the women into it in terms of the judging and
00:21:03
Speaker
women and their cars that held the spirit of Dorothy Leavitt and so for the past two years we've had the most fantastic winners who you know them as individuals and their cars deserve awards and it's been really really wonderful to meet them and hear their stories. For example this year we had a lady called Julia de Bordanza
00:21:26
Speaker
She won in her 1955 Fraser National Coupe, which was gorgeous and very rare car, of course. Beautiful car, beautiful car. Yeah, exactly. And to her as an individual, I'd been speaking to her all week.
00:21:41
Speaker
And a couple of days beforehand, she said, Georgia, is there an airport nearby? And I said, well, of course, Heathrow. She goes, no, no, to fly my plane. And she was planning on flying her vintage aircraft in and then driving her car and the weekend before she'd been racing her.
00:22:01
Speaker
She had a single-teacher maserati, she'd been basing, so she's the most incredible woman, you know, racing driver, pilot, and collects these fantastic pieces of history. So it really does come into play, I think, which is quite wonderful, again, to profile these amazing women that haven't necessarily been spoken about as much for some of the men in the industry.
Connections Between Cars, Aviation, Motorsport, and Watchmaking
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, brilliant. I mean, I had a chat with Julia just after the event, actually, we were just walking around as it was getting a bit later in the day and a fantastic looking machine, that Fraser Nash, absolutely beautiful. The green as well just absolutely popped in the sun. And yeah, she was very, you know, very
00:22:47
Speaker
i think i saw a picture of her leaning in sort of squirting wd-40 into the engine bay doing some various sort of elements of tinkering before the event and yeah just there seems to be quite a close connection really between not just cars but aviation as well and the same with i had the conversation with a few different people on the watch side of things so why sort of motorsport went quite hand in hand with watches and and it seems to be expanding to
00:23:15
Speaker
aviation as well. I know your grandfather flew bow fighters to the Bristol bow fighters as well as being a bit of a speed wind. So that sort of aviation connection between aircraft and mechanical objects in general seems to be that holy trinity seems to be sort of cars watches and planes at the moment.
00:23:40
Speaker
So moving on to looking at, and we had the same question with Merlin actually and he was talking about when he grew up that he was sort of driving around these old clapped out cars and everyone was kind of looking at him a bit funny and there seemed to be a bit of a shift. I definitely noticed it when I got to a certain age where I started appreciating cars a lot more and classics and you mentioned you're quite into the pre-war stuff.
00:24:04
Speaker
Is it something you've always had a fascination in or do you think it's something that as you kind of got a little bit older, you've developed that appreciation for those sort of things?
Passion for Pre-War Cars and Driving Experiences
00:24:15
Speaker
I think that, again, it comes back to me as a child. So I used to watch the Pathé films, my grandfather racing at Booklands, and he was always in pre-war cars, of course, with his big moustache and his goggles, and I just thought that was the quarter thing over. Obviously not the moustache.
00:24:35
Speaker
I'm trying to keep that one under wraps. He'd be blasting around Brooklyn or all this old footage of him outside the house or bombing along the road in Egypt or something in these old cars with his goggles on and his big moustache.
00:24:50
Speaker
and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever and I've always liked a bit of danger and I love that kind of feeling of being free. I grew up with horses and things like that and I always I'd never really experienced pre-war cars too much except as a child because my father didn't have any himself.
00:25:10
Speaker
apart from when I was a baby, and then my mother made himself of them because they were only two seats, which is quite sad. And so very, very lucky, I mean, I feel very privileged to say this, William Metcalfe invites me down to Goodwood a couple of years ago.
00:25:26
Speaker
to learn how to drive a four-and-a-half litre Bentley around the track, which was... I can't believe you even advice me to be honest, it was quite amazing. And that was of course one of the cars that my grandfather owned before the war. And so for me that was utterly magical.
00:25:44
Speaker
and it just sparked what I always knew that I want one of these and one day I will buy one of these and this is just the best one ever and so off the back of it I'm not quite in Bentley budget yet I'm sure one day I hope to be
00:25:59
Speaker
I went and bought a 1929 Ford, it's a Model A boat tail speedster, which absolutely no one knows what it is. I've taken it to multiple pilots, I drive it every single day, come rain or shine, everyone in Richmond thinks I'm bonkers.
00:26:16
Speaker
But one person knows what it is, which I absolutely love. And I think quite a few people in the pub think it's a bit more special than it actually is. And they'll say, oh, you know, is that a spaghetti? I think absolutely not. But no, it's just I have driven lots of classic cars. I'm very, very lucky, of course, with my with my family or with Merlin or with my job. I used to review cars and driving a pre-war car was the most fun I've ever had.
00:26:46
Speaker
behind the wheel ever, times by 10. And I just loved it. I loved how rugged it is. I love the sound. For me, I think 60 to 70% of my enjoyment from a car comes from the noise. And the Ford is definitely loud, which I love.
00:27:04
Speaker
And I love getting, you know, all dressed up in my aviator jacket with my dog in the passenger seat and just tearing around looking like a lunatic really. I just think it's really good fun and it makes every day that I drive, even somewhere boring, like to the supermarket or to the woods to walk the dog.
00:27:23
Speaker
great fun and so yes pre-work hours for me I would say on my newfound passion and I'm hoping to do a lot more with them and hopefully get that Bentley one day
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, they're beautiful. I think my friend at school, his granddad, had a four and a half Lee a Bentley. I knew it was a Bentley, but again, I got to that sort of a few years later and I was like, actually, that was such a cool car. Why didn't I try and sort of spend more time trying to go around and learning about it and things like that.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, pre-war cars are interesting. I've never really, I must say, I've not been around too many or any sort of classic car events and you don't see as many around.
Joy and Community in Driving Classic Cars
00:28:06
Speaker
So what is it that makes it so, so different? I can imagine it's quite a bit more involved than your classic cars, which are obviously modern cars when you look at them in respect to the sort of 29 and pre-war stuff, right?
00:28:21
Speaker
I think it really depends obviously on the car you have because most pre-work cars do have a roof, mine does not. So that's sort of the first hurdle to jump the ball.
00:28:34
Speaker
And mine also doesn't, which is probably quite naughty, doesn't have mud guards. And so obviously if you go out in the rain or with a wet road in mine, you will get wet. So if you're planning on going to a meeting, you sort of need a full rain mask and a face mask to turn up looking half decent. But of course, in terms of the more practical side of things,
00:28:55
Speaker
Driving is different, so the gears and the gearbox, and it's quite good fun to learn how to deal with pedals, of course. So that's the first thing to know. Each of them have their own sort of secret starting combination, which is fun to learn. And I think the maintenance is so much simpler and cheaper. Obviously, in my very basic experience with an old Ford, I'm sure this does not help from most of the others out there.
00:29:24
Speaker
You can fix most things in mind with a spanner, and you have to sort of check it every 200 miles. Whereas, you know, other cars we've got in the garage, you have to check them every few thousand miles, whereas the Ford, sort of after every drive, you want to just check everything's still tight. But it's all stuff you can do yourself, which is really nice. So you really get to know your car a lot more than you would with something modern.
00:29:48
Speaker
And yeah, of course, you know, they're all EU-less and all EU-less, et cetera, which is great. So you shouldn't drive it. Yeah. Don't mind that. No £12, no £12.50 charge for you. You know, is it or is it more in London? Oh, it's £12 for you. It might be more. Funny enough, all of my cars are EU-less, so I don't have to pay that, which is good. You can park them just about anywhere and people don't seem to mind or give you a ticket, which is quite good.
00:30:13
Speaker
And I think the other brilliant thing about having a pre-war car is you get to meet so many people, like really wonderful people, and it has such, the Ford has such a different reaction to driving something different. Like, for example, if I drive around or I have driven around in Berlin's Tester or so,
00:30:33
Speaker
You get the odd look, mostly, you know, sort of middle aged men, perfectly frank. But weirdly, driving around in the Ford, and I can't believe this because in all the cars I've ever driven I've never had any female attention. It's girls that seem to dig it the most and think it's the coolest thing. And the first time I drove it round Richmond I had a group of teenage girls cheering at the side of the road which I thought was totally bizarre.
00:31:02
Speaker
Then again I thought back and I thought I've personally never seen a girl driving around in something that old or silly before.
00:31:10
Speaker
And I don't know, I'm not sure how people take it, but you get to meet and have a lot of really wonderful conversations with people. And I've ended up off back of it speaking to far more women than I would have ever spoken to driving something else and making friends. And yes, it's people like my dad that are interested and want to come over and people want to put their children in there and take a picture. And you just end up meeting lots of really charming people and having
00:31:35
Speaker
great conversations and I literally just brings people together in a way that a modern car doesn't and it makes people smile which is really nice.
00:31:43
Speaker
I'm just saying, and I think that's one of the big appeals of classic cars. So you're definitely channeling the spirit of Dorothy Leavitt with your open top there. It sounds like you need to, instead of having a pocketberry, you need just a brawly to drive along within the rain. And for people who are going wrong with their dating, you just need to buy a pre-war car, basically. That's the solution. That's why you've been going wrong this whole time.
00:32:09
Speaker
But yeah, in all seriousness, I do love the community that classic cars and spanning from modern classics to free war sort of stuff as well. There's always commonality. You always find someone random will come up to you. We've got an Austin Healy sprite, a 67 Austin Healy sprite. And any time you park that anywhere, it always turns heads. It's lovely to drive. I say lovely to drive it.
00:32:35
Speaker
Steering's heavy, it's like a boat sort of turned around corners and I always like to say it's got a noise pedal so it doesn't get any faster when you put your foot down it just gets louder but that's part of the charm of it and you're so low to the ground that
00:32:51
Speaker
doing you know 50 miles an hour it feels like you're doing 100 miles an hour in those things because they're just so low to the ground and you feel every bump rattle and you know and uh and pothole in which in the uk are pretty prevalent if you live anywhere near the countryside or anywhere within your 50 mile radius of the m25 but uh you have people coming up to you that say you know i used to have one of these uh
00:33:14
Speaker
when I was, you know, learning to drive or when I was in my twenties, you know, men, women, granddads, grandmas, like all that sort of stuff. It's just a nice, nice thing. And it's, as you say, it brings people together. It's sort of that mutual appreciation for something that you don't, you don't see anymore. I think they're just, there's a certain, there's a certain beauty about even sort of the old sort of bangers as well. They're charming in their own,
00:33:41
Speaker
different way whereas I think modern cars they just yeah you can get nice modern cars but they all look quite samey and I just I just don't enjoy modern cars as much as I enjoy classics personally. No I think it's the character that each old car has. I give all of my cars names which is a bit silly but they all they all have characters and personalities and I think that's what makes each of them so special. Yeah definitely.
Skills from Luxury Sector Applied to Automotive Industry
00:34:10
Speaker
So just moving back to your experience, obviously, or what you're doing at the moment with working in the automotive sector with ultra high net worth individuals, high net worth individuals, what do you feel are some of the key skills that you possess that have been invaluable to you as you worked in this industry? I think moving into cars or the automotive world from the luxury lifestyle sector has really, really helped because prior to that I worked in a really corporate environment.
00:34:39
Speaker
obviously the way things are done in a corporate environment are very different to some of the dealerships or the other companies that I've come across in the car world and so obviously working in the luxury lifestyles sector before you've learned that there's not just one element of it you know if you drive a nice car you also
00:35:01
Speaker
same beautiful hotels or appreciate beautiful watches or appreciate beautiful design it's a whole lifestyle that comes with any one item and I think an understanding of someone's lifestyle rather than just one of their interests is really important because you then have that common knowledge and that rapport with someone and you can discuss all of those things and help bring them all together
00:35:27
Speaker
But I think, yeah, really it's that experience that I've had in different sectors that's helped me in the automotive world have a slightly different take on things. So you said you do like driving experiences as well, and obviously it's the event side, but you're looking to do more on the driving experiences and driving tours side of things as part of the Allbury brand.
Organizing Bespoke Driving Tours
00:35:51
Speaker
How would you go about
00:35:53
Speaker
starting with these, you know, planning the routes and things like that, how would you get started with planning an event of that scale? So it really depends on the client, to be perfectly honest, and who they have coming. So each one of our drives or experiences, we do it totally bespoke to the event. It's not like other rally companies where they have a set rally like the one in Scotland, the North Coast 500, and they all go in the same hotel every time.
00:36:20
Speaker
We do something bespoke for each kind which sets us apart a little bit. The first thing's first is I'll find out who they are and who's coming and what cars are coming because obviously if you have 15 pre-war cars or if you have 20 supercars, the roads and places you're going to be driving are going vastly different. And also the people coming are going to be vastly different and so they're going to want to stay in a different type of accommodation or a different type of food and you really have to find out who's going to be there first.
00:36:50
Speaker
And then once I have a deep understanding of who those people are and what cars they're bringing, and sometimes the client might say, you know, surprise me, you know, wherever you want to go, it's got to be roughly four or five days and five hours of driving a day, I'll then try and think of a great adventure because really I think there's something joyous about
00:37:10
Speaker
bringing out your inner child and going on a great adventure in your car and not doing something you've done before and being surprised. A lot of high net worth and ultra high net worth because when you have that much money you can do anything and life can sometimes become a little bit boring. Not always. There are lots of people that have the best fun ever of course but sometimes you know the same five-star hotels all the time can become very repetitive and they all seem the same and
00:37:38
Speaker
you know there's the same sort of people and you have the same sort of Michelin dinners and the same tasting menus and that's all very nice and I'm sure that's wonderful as a one-off but you don't want to be doing that on your big adventure with your car on you know some
00:37:53
Speaker
some great trip you're doing across wherever. And so we try to make it different. So obviously the standard of what we do, we keep it as high as possible. So if we're going to be stopping for a coffee stop, instead of stopping by the side of the road in any old cafe, we'll stop with a farmer that makes the cheese for the Michelin-style restaurant, you know, to try that cheese that is being produced for one of the top restaurants in the world. And everything we do, we just try to make it a bit more as simple and a bit more unique.
00:38:21
Speaker
And I start off by, again, thinking of a location and where we want to go and then I'll spend days looking at a map, a paper map and studying roads and mapping out drive time and I'll be on Google Maps and researching the best roads and then going on satellite view and driving them myself and then for each day or night I'll plan perhaps.
00:38:45
Speaker
I don't know, five hotels or five restaurants and then I'll go out on a recce and sometimes take the dog with me which is quite enough that he said some company and I'll drive 10 to 12 hours a day driving each of the potential roads and visiting each of the potential coffee stops and lunch stops and dinner stops and overnight stops
00:39:06
Speaker
until I find the best one and then of course it's a game of matching up who has availability and who has the bedrooms free and then if that works out with the drive time and so all in all you end up doing two wreckies before a drive like this and
00:39:22
Speaker
a lot of backwards and forwards and trying to work out and obviously parking is really key and there are, yeah, there's a lot, a lot of elements that go into a rally like that, but ultimately the most important thing is who's coming and what cars are coming so that we can suit it to their needs.
00:39:41
Speaker
Absolutely. It does sound extremely like the level of planning that needs to go into that
Managing Unexpected Challenges During Events
00:39:47
Speaker
sort of thing. And even when you think about high net worth individuals, you know, little things like security, perhaps I would have thought that you wouldn't need to think about on a normal drive. But other than your vehicle, does that come into it? Or does that come into play? Do you find you have to bring along entourages as well? Or is it not not to that level?
00:40:07
Speaker
And we've had to, with some of our private experiences, with some of our private clients, on the rallies, typically no, we haven't had to do that. I think the types of people that need security don't tend to go on a group trip. Truth, yes. But yeah, I mean, where we tend to stay and tend to go, we will always make sure that the cars are completely secure.
00:40:32
Speaker
And of course, when you're driving somewhere like Switzerland, you know it's one of the safest countries in the world and you could leave your car unlocked anywhere and it would be fine, very slightly. But obviously when you go into other countries such as Italy, you have to have higher security and say we'll choose gated and very secure parking and that's a real high priority for us. The safety, of course, of the cars and of the guests.
00:40:58
Speaker
So as with any sort of event or project, I'm sure there are always challenges and uncertainties that sort of come into the foray where people
00:41:07
Speaker
You may get a spanner thrown in the works to, if you pardon a very bad pun, considering we're talking about mechanical objects here. But how do you approach dealing with those unknowns and those areas or events that may happen that really throw off your plans? And how do you deal with those without becoming overwhelmed by all or stress, considering you've got all these people counting on you to deliver an experience? I think with an event, you only ever get one short sit.
00:41:37
Speaker
Like, that's the end. You have one shot. And so you have to overorganise everything for every possible scenario. And so it actually helps to be slightly anxious as an individual because you then think about all these bad scenarios that could happen ahead of prime and then you push in procedures that make sure that they either don't happen or you can fix them if they do.
00:41:58
Speaker
And so on all of our rallies we have a train mechanic that's very specific to the car, a pre-war or post-war car mechanic that attends with a full van with every single piece of kit and we'll get a full list of cars before they attend so we know what spark plugs to buy and what oil we need and you know all the things so that if anything basic happens to these cars we can fix them.
00:42:21
Speaker
and also if anything more major happens we can hopefully fix them without having specialist parts flown infamitally or you know Germany or wherever they were made and so mechanics are pretty key also on some of our rallies we don't like to have it but we will have a trailer sometimes just in case and also a backup vehicle so we'll sometimes have another very beautiful classic car available such as an e-type or a dv5 that's there following the guests around so let's just say
00:42:47
Speaker
Someone in their beautiful Ferrari breaks down in the front. Within 20 minutes, we'll have a DB5 for him to jump in and drive to the lunch location while the mechanic fixes his car and then trailers it to lunch and then off he goes again. So we'll always try to have a solution to everything that's there and waiting. And nine times out of 10, we never have to use it. But it's just that security of knowing that if something happens, we can remedy it most immediately.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yeah, rather have it and not need it, then need it and not have it. So looking ahead then with Aubrey and the future goals, what are, what does the next sort of five, 10 years look like for
Vision for Expanding Aubrey's Offerings
00:43:28
Speaker
Aubrey? What are the main goals and objectives for the company?
00:43:32
Speaker
Well, I think for Aubrey, we're really hoping to do a lot more 4x4s. And already there are some, I can't talk about just yet, but some very, very exciting ones that are not like anything we've done before. And they're hopefully in the pipeline for next year. So moving out of just Landravers and sort of your typical 4x4s and going into some of the more rally spec.
00:43:55
Speaker
vehicles and sports cars too. So yeah, I mean, hoping to expand and just build lots more beautiful cars that people can enjoy really. Excellent. And then for the events business as well.
00:44:10
Speaker
So the events visits, we're doing a few rallies next year. There's a really, really great restorers in the UK with some really, really special asset cars. So we have a few of those planned. We also have a couple of international rallies planned which are going to be great fun and we'll be launching those soon.
00:44:29
Speaker
But there are so many other things that we do aside from events, which is probably why it looks quite quiet on our social media a lot of the time. We're watching at the moment with a really fantastic young racing driver called Manuel Maldonado, who's actually racing right now in Portugal for the European Le Mans Series, their finale.
00:44:48
Speaker
and we're helping him launch a luxury streetwear brand which is all racing inspired so we do lots of other projects which aren't necessarily events related and so yeah we're just trying to grow all aspects of the business really post more events we're doing some shooting events this year and next year with off-roading involved so the idea is you bring your classic
00:45:09
Speaker
four by four you bob around the beautiful estate to shoot some plays and have a big lunch and have a great day so there are lots of other things that we're putting into playing and planning for next year which we're excited about. Amazing and I saw on your instagram you got a motorcycle apparel is that is that still in the works ladies centered motorcycle gear is that still is that still in the pipeline
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah, so it's called Andres Saint-Jean, which means between her legs in French.
Development of Women's Motorcycle Apparel Line
00:45:43
Speaker
It's Lady's motorcycle alcohol, because I love riding a bike and all of the biker stuff out there at the moment, you either end up looking like a man or looking like a Power Ranger and there's nothing very funny.
00:45:57
Speaker
I think for women. And so, yeah, we're trying to design beautiful items, much like here in Nightly War in that Chanel advert that everyone remembers so well with her on the Ducati. And yeah, just sort of beautiful luxury pieces that are practical and look good on the bike. Brilliant. Georgia Peck, thank you very much indeed for your time. I really enjoyed having you on the podcast.
00:46:24
Speaker
So if anyone wants to find out a bit more about Aubrey Peck or Aubrey, do you have a website or anywhere they can go and find out a bit more about what you do? Yeah, so we've got two websites. We have Aubreypeck.co.uk and then we also have AubreyAudionBills.co.uk and we're on Instagram by the same names too. And you can find out a bit more about what we do. Amazing. Thank you very much. Brilliant. Thank you so much.
00:47:11
Speaker
you