Car Club gives Gray platform to exciting career

A Longridge Towers School student is preparing to help protect the UK’s future in car-building and motorsport after securing an apprenticeship to a famous motor engineering college.

Gray Smithson lives near Wooler and, now 18, he has enjoyed a range of subjects throughout his school years at Longridge. But he admits his interest was piqued in Year Six after he joined an enrichment club held after school by former Longridge chair of governors and local historian Stuart Bankier.

Stuart has long had a love of motorsport and cars, particularly historics, and after setting up the ‘car club’ he has helped many youngsters learn how engines work, and, more importantly, how to build and fix them. Gray is now taking that a step further after coming through interviews to beat hundreds of students from across the UK to one of this year’s apprenticeships to the Heritage Skills Academy.

The Academy was founded in 2015 to meet a growing need for a younger generation in the Heritage Industry. The Academy works with education and industry professionals to create and develop an apprenticeship standard and allow apprentices to develop the skills needed to thrive in what has become a growing market.

The Academy is situated in Oxfordshire and what is termed the “Motorsport Valley” surrounded by the Mercedes Petronas, Williams, Alpine and Haas F1 team HQs as well as legendary classic makes. As a result, the area is viewed as a global leader in the development of car mechanics.

The Academy is supported by the Federation of Historic British Vehicle Clubs, the Galashan Foundation and the Starter Motor Charity, and has workshop and training facilities dedicated to mechanical, coachbuilding and trim apprenticeships.

They state: “For apprentices lucky enough to become part of Heritage Skills Academy, our locations within Bicester Heritage and Brooklands Museum provide an exciting and vibrant environment which embeds them within the world of specialist engineers, historic engineering and cutting edge technology.”

A key part of their success is recruiting and training mechanics they believe to have the approach to work across all sorts of motor engineering and motorsport, as they have become a key partner to a host of manufacturers seeking to take on the best apprentices.

Gray is looking forward to the whole experience, but admits he has an idea where he would like his engineering career to take him in the future. He told us: “My dad’s always had classic cars, mainly American hot rods, and so I’ve grown up around drag racing and always been fascinated by the cars.

“I applied for the Heritage Skills Academy to do the coach-building course, so hand-making panels and parts for classic cars, but the ultimate goal is to be able to move out to California eventually and work on hot rods and build race cars in the US.”

He added: “I started going to the car club at Longridge in Year Six, so that’s about six or seven years now, and I have loved it. I have been helping other pupils get involved in the last couple of years and that has been good fun too.

“It is amazing to get a place at the Heritage Academy and now I’m working on finding somewhere around Bicester that’ll take me on and help put me through my college course.”

Stuart Bankier and Longridge Car Club students are currently busy putting together a classic car.