Gabriel de Meurville

Born in February 1969 in Buenos Aires and living in UK since 2003.

“Since an early stage in life, my passion for every wheeled devise was much evident. Much reflected in my kindergarten days always with a toy car in hand and the primary school when more than one teacher used to call Mum because her kid was often caught drawing cars instead of paying attention. Also, Mum was a Formula 1 fan at that time when Carlos Reutemann was our motorsport hero back in the 70’s. So, watching F1 was something that became a real pleasure. Dad bought my first camera at 8 years old and, not surprisingly, I never stopped photographing cars since then. The learning curve about cars and its history was increasing over the years with an acceptable collection of Super-Fast Matchboxes, and different books and magazines I’ve started to read and enjoy progressively. Those were fascinating times!

In 1988, I started to study Graphic Design at the Buenos Aires University as I wanted to follow the path of creativity. Amazingly was my initial work as graphic designer, while I was studying, that led into the classic car world. A friend was restoring his 1948 MG TC and asked me if I could draw the instruments dials to reprint them. I really enjoyed helping him and was the kick start for a job and an adventure that after thirty years is stronger than ever.

After my graduation in 1992, the demand for restoring and refurbishing instruments from classic cars was slowly growing without doing any kind of advertising and I didn’t need much time to find myself working full time. For over a decade the business grew up accordingly to my experience gaining customers who owned an impressive collection of cars and the most important restoration garages in the country. In late 2001 the economy in my country dropped critically down and I found myself with no work at all. That situation put me in front of a new challenge and two options. Changing the work I was doing or trying experience abroad on what already I was doing. In April 2003, I took the challenge to start a new life in England leaving behind 34 years of life in my beloved hometown San Isidro near Buenos Aires.

Starting a new life far from home isn’t easy for start. I was facing a new challenge in life. Making contact with different restoration garages around the area in Chichester was my first task and I confirmed my first job at Taylor’s Garage to repair and refurbish the dashboard and the instruments from a 1929 Rolls Royce Phantom II. Just after the fifth month of my arrival to UK, I’ve got a full working contract at the Rolls Royce Company in Goodwood overseeing the paint shop department to check the quality on the paint work of all the cars that coming at the end of the assembly line and periodically painting the coach lines by hand on the cars when it was required.