How it all started

Having grown up in a motoring mad family Harry Painter is a fourth generation petrol head that has been immersed in the historic motoring world since he was born and is an active member of the Vintage Sports Car Club and the 500 Owners Association.

He’d started racing go karts since he was 8 and as soon as he was 16 he gained his circuit race licence which meant meant he could carry on the friendly racing rivalry with his father in the families two prewar MG specials just like his father had done with his. Since a young age he was also seen regularly navigating for his father and more recently his brother in the family Austin Seven Ulster too.

After leaving school Harry had progressed to helping out at ‘Sports and Vintage’ who are one of the main suppliers for vintage MG parts and during his time there he was involved with jobs like jig drilling rocker shafts and clutch covers to assembling track rod ends and petrol taps.

From there Harry progressed to an apprenticeship with Stokey Plant Hire who specialised in the large quarry side of machinery. He spent 5 years in which he completed his Level 3 in Land Based Engineering but certainly didn’t leave his hobby alone. During this time, alongside the competition side of things, he along with his father, had fully mechanically rebuilt a 1924 Citroen 5cv and in the Covid lockdown a complete nut and bolt restoration of a 1952 Cooper F3 500cc car which Harry can still be regularly seen piloting on the circuits today.

In 2022 the next chapter in Harry’s career began after a phone call from Scott Hughes at Brooklands Autocraft. This was when his hobby finally became his career. Furthering many skills from TIG welding to using an English Wheel he spent almost 4 years with them working on many cars from Aston Martins to mK1 Cooper S’s. A wide variety of work was undertaken including many engine rebuilds to re-comissioning cars after long periods off the road. Fabrication machining also played a large part, for example, like making new headlight mountings or new wishbones for racing cars.

In 2025 the big decision to relocate from his native Shropshire with his partner, Tori, to North Yorkshire was made for various reasons. Having looked around they both realised that there really wasn’t that much support in the area for the historic vehicle movement. This resulted in the decision to start up a new company that could help owners of these vehicles with any job they required no matter how big or small and Wardle Rigg Engineering was duly formed in March 2026 that turned their hobby into something more