Biography - Paul Lewis

The Early Days

Paul started out in his family’s engineering and sheet metal business. At the age of 15 he had bought a very tatty MGB GT needing a complete restoration. In exchange for storage space and a chance to work on the car, his ‘Saturday’ tasks involved brazing ferrules onto fuel pick up pipes for roadside compressors and turning pulley wheels for abattoir overhead hooks.

Upon leaving school he joined the family business full time and became a welder/engineer. The MG was only allowed to be worked on during his own time and took 3 years to finish. College ‘day release’ saw Paul gain a O.N.C. in Mechanical and Production Engineering and a H.N.C. in Production Engineering

The RAF

With somewhat itchy feet, Paul applied for a position in the Royal Air Force as an Air Engineer (Flight Engineer in civvy speak). This is the person on the flight deck that sits behind the two pilots on multi engined aircraft. Basically it is the engineering manager of the aircraft, normally only offered to serving ground trades airmen. Being one of the very few direct entrants the training was incredibly tough however, Paul graduated from RAF Finningley with the Reynolds Trophy and a posting to RAF Lyneham onto the Lockheed C130 Hercules.

Timing is everything and despite arriving in late 1990 to convert to type in more grown up surroundings, the first Gulf War kicked off in early 1991. As soon as conversion training was over, Paul was put with an experienced crew for real time operations in the Middle East.

He specialised in worldwide route flying, low level flying and was Air-to-Air receiver qualified. Paul was selected to be one of four crews as the RAF Falcons display crew and one of four crews to be selected for JACIG (Joint Arms Control Inspection Group), basically flying Weapons Inspectors out to the former Soviet block of countries in the 90s.

Further conflicts happened over the years including the former Yugoslavia region followed by a build up of Iraqi forces in the Gulf.

During this time, Paul was heavily involved with the RAF Lyneham motor club and owned several classics from TR7s to a Lotus. Indeed, the car park was once referred to as a ‘fruit pastille’ selection of various coloured TR7s awaiting a V8 engine swap.

After 11 years at RAF Lyneham, Paul was posted - somewhat kicking and screaming – to an easier life on the ‘shiny’ fleet of Lockheed L1011 Tristar’s at RAF Brize Norton.

After a couple of years ‘route flying’ he was selected for Air-to-Air Tanker flying. On completion of the 'tanking' course (literally the day after) he was on a civvy flight to Bahrain to meet up with his AAR tanker crew just before the start of the second Gulf War. There seems to be a pattern starting here...!

Paul then became ‘trail qualified’ (one of only 2 on the squadron) allowing him to ‘tank’ fast jets over long distances – i.e. the Atlantic Ocean.

Post RAF - The love of cars becomes a business

Eleven years passed on the Tristar and Paul took early redundancy and left the RAF, after nearly 24 years service, in 2012.

Whilst at Brize, Paul bought a Jensen Interceptor and joined the Jensen Owners’ Club.

Trying to keep a low profile proved difficult and after a couple of years Paul was offered the position of Interceptor Registrar on the committee. This was a great opportunity to tidy up the history of members’ cars and provide technical help where it was needed.

After a few more years this led to Paul becoming the Chairman of the Jensen Owners’ Club in June 2012 until June 2017 (a fixed five year term). Paul regularly appraised cars for insurance valuations as well as continuing to provide ongoing technical support to owners.

Paul started Pale Classics after leaving the RAF and he ran it until late 2019 during which time the company had expanded to 7 employees and working on a variety of cars from a Morris 8 to a Facel Vega HK500.

The speciality of the company was mainly luxury Grand Tourers from the 60s and 70s, e.g. Aston Martin, Jensen, Jaguar, Alvis and Bristol. Pale Classics was regularly featured in magazines such as Practical Classics, Classic & Sports Car and Classic Motoring.

However, classic car sales and restorations took a slump in 2019 due to the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Paul states that during his working life, nothing was tougher – including all the worldwide conflicts - than making redundant employees that had become friends.

Phoenix Classic Car Consultancy

After a time of reflection, Paul decided to put his knowledge of classic cars, the market and owners to good use and set up Phoenix Classic Car Consultancy.

His process as a Flight Engineer was to explain to the pilots why for instance a light has come on. He uses the analogy of teaching your mother to programme the video recorder. There’s no point talking in ‘technical speak’ if the other person doesn’t understand. If they do, all well and good, but there's no point in trying to 'out technical' each other as well.

The same is true of many classic car owners, both male and female. The media portrays a bearded man with string back gloves and a MGB, fixing broken fan belts with his wife’s nylons and setting the points at the roadside. The truth is owners are nothing like the stereotype, some have a good grasp of the ‘technical’ and some don’t.

Paul explains clearly without using overtly technical speak.