![Copthorne Classics is a father-and-son Jaguar and Aston Martin specialist Classic & Sports Car - The specialist: Copthorne Classics](/sites/default/files/styles/article/public/2022-09/Classic%20%26%20Sports%20Car%20%E2%80%93%20The%20specialist%20%E2%80%93%20Copthorne%20Classics%20%E2%80%93%20LEAD.png?itok=qznJ0nHK)
You can trace the origins of West Sussex-based Copthorne Classics some way beyond when the firm was founded in 2016.
This story begins with a five-year-old boy, gleefully staring at his father’s newly acquired DB6 in 1997 – and follows a family journey through a series of classic Aston Martins.
That boy was called Lee Davies – and, thanks to a namesake tradition spanning three generations, so is his father.
Together they have created a British-car specialist founded in family values and focused on Aston and Jaguar.
![Lee Davies Snr works on a Jaguar E-type Classic & Sports Car - The specialist: Copthorne Classics](/sites/default/files/2022-09/Classic%20%26%20Sports%20Car%20%E2%80%93%20The%20specialist%20%E2%80%93%20Copthorne%20Classics%20%E2%80%93%2007.png)
Jaguars are a common sight in the Copthorne workshop, here Lee Davies Snr prepares an E-type’s inline-six
It was inevitable. By the time Davies Jnr left school, only one career was on his mind.
He joined a Rolls-Royce and Bentley workshop as an apprentice, and began learning the trade that supported the family’s interest.
After a year he moved to an Aston specialist, and finally worked under the wing of a former Jaguar engineer, learning all he could before his retirement.
![Lee Davies Jnr rebuilding an XK engine Classic & Sports Car - The specialist: Copthorne Classics](/sites/default/files/2022-09/Classic%20%26%20Sports%20Car%20%E2%80%93%20The%20specialist%20%E2%80%93%20Copthorne%20Classics%20%E2%80%93%2003_1.png)
Head engineer, Lee Davies Jnr, reassembles a six-cylinder XK engine