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About Que Automotive Ltd

To really know ‘About Us’ we need to go back to the start. The very start of our love for modified cars.

Jay's Story
“It all began in 1991 when I was just 10 years old. My parents took me to the motor show at The NEC in Birmingham. One car in particular caught my eye, the Escort Cosworth, and it was from there that my passion for ‘Dagenham dustbins’ began. Ford were parading their latest Mallard Green Escort Cosworth, with the infamous Whailtail and I promised myself that one day I would own one. Whilst trekking round The NEC I grabbed every freebie that I could carry and when I got home I cut out the pictures of my favorite cars and stuck them on my bedroom wall. Obviously, the Escort Cosworth took pride of place.

I spent my teenage years purchasing Max Power, a magazine I used to dream about being on the cover of with my modified ride. I’d regularly choose a car and write on a note pad how much it would cost to modify everything from the engine to uprated wheels, suspension and brakes.

As soon as I hit 17 I was out on the road as quickly as I could be. Being a big Ford fan at this point I went out and brought a MK1 Fiesta and within a week I’d been to the scrap yard, stripped a MK1 Fiesta XR2 and fitted all the parts to mine. I was hooked!

All my cars that followed stayed within the Ford family. There was a MK3 Escort XR3 Replica – built by myself, a MK1 3DR Escort with full roll cage, uprated suspension, brakes and the loudest exhaust possible. A rotten RS Turbo that was sold for parts and replaced with a Series 1 RS Turbo.

The years passed and the list went on, and on!

In 2008 I decided to purchase cars through the auction and sell them on and its here I learnt so many valuable lessons about the motor trade.

In 2011 I created a business based in Colchester with a fellow Petrolhead. We started the business with just a Citreon Saxo purchased from Manheim and built it up over 5 years to a 60+ car dealership, selling 40 cars per month. We owned and sold everything from Ferrari’s to the now classic Ford Escort Cosworth – goal achieved!

In 2017 I created Que Automotive with Sarah, our passion for cars meant that this smallish style/type business exploded, before we knew it, we had a 14 car showroom in Colchester and were travelling every part of the country, hunting out high spec vehicles, Chasing Cars became our life, we literally didn’t stop.

2020 was a game changer for everybody, we were forced to close our doors and that time out made us realise and analyse our business, we had to scale up or scale back, previous experience was telling us to keep it small and not lose our attention to detail, less is more approach.

So that's exactly what we did, we handed back the keys to our showroom, scaled back and paid attention to the little things.

A more laid back approach to car sales is definitely one we have welcomed with open arms and something that was missing in the car industry. Don't worry, we still offer everything that we did when we had a showroom.

If I'm not tinkering with cars you'll find me on two wheels, peddling round the beautiful Essex Countryside. We still attend a lot of track days and are regulars to the infamous Nurburgring, if you’ve read this far then you must come and visit us.

Sarah’s Story
“If you ask my Dad, he’ll tell you my love for cars comes from my Mum but they’ve both had an obscene number of cars throughout my childhood so I guess they’re equally to blame.

Like Jay I modified the very first car I owned, a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 SXi. I started small, with new wheels, stereo and a few minor engine modifications that the insurance company definitely didn’t need to know about.
My love for cars accelerated, faster than the Corsa and before long it was time to up my game and this is where the fun began and a passion for anything VAG!

I upgraded to a VW Golf GTi, proudly named Glenda and it wasn’t long before she was booked into AMD for some serious modifications. Glenda and I went on to cover tens of thousands of miles together, she really was my pride and joy. Ten years on and I still regret selling her.

In 2009 I was on holiday reading Max Power (can you see why Jay and I are together?) and I read an article on the soon to be released VW Scirocco R. Within 24hours of getting off the plane, I’d paid a deposit and ordered a car not one salesman in the VW showroom knew anything about.

From here the list goes on and includes another Golf GTi, Audi TTS, Abarth 500 Essesse and 595 Competizione and many, many more. Most of which Jay sold without me even knowing they were for sale."

So if you love modified cars, you’ll love us. Feel free to drop in and pay us a visit, you never know what we have coming on to the books.

See you soon!
Jay & Sarah

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Colchester
Essex
CO5 7AU 07388 593 490

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