THE owner of a famous garage in Hampshire has expressed his joy as work on its major expansion has finished.
Work to add a recording studio and café to the Winchester Auto Barn, between Stockbridge and Sutton Scotney, has taken three years but is now complete and is already being well received by customers.
Owner Niall Holden, 65, described the expansion as a 'labour of love' which took more than three years to finish.
He bought the site in September 2018, and started planning in 2022.
Niall, who lives in St Cross, Winchester, said: "I to-ed and fro-ed, with various manifestations of what we were going to do. There was already permission for the garage, which had been here a long time; it was an old filling station, and the sales department had been selling cars for a long time.
"That was okay, but I wanted to introduce this catering side of things, and we had the studio as a studio, but it started as a jam space. We 'broke soil' in September 2022. It's been an extraordinary and expensive journey.
The studio (Image: Winchester Auto Barn)
"I'm really happy with the result, and with what we've achieved."
Now the venue is more than just a garage, with a spacious event venue equipped with a state-of-the-art professional PA system and high-end lighting rig, it has become a destination celebrating cars, culture, and community.
It has started holding live music events, and has a host of events planned in the run-up to Christmas.
The Fleetwood Collective will play on November 28, Winter Wonderband will be held on December 10 and a Christmas party will be held on December 11.
This is all alongside its cafe and garage, offering MOTs, services, and repairs, and its car sales, featuring a showroom packed with a stylish blend of cars, music, curios, and automobilia from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Niall, who also runs VDC Trading, a company which supplies cabling systems for bands, studios, festivals and tours, said: "The people who come here find it quite different, quite unique. I wasn't going Caffeine and Machine, I didn't want that mud and supercar vibe, I wanted more retro and Goodwood Revival-vibe.
" People can pop in; if they want to buy a car, it is done casually, and if they want to have a meal or hire the space out for an event or get an MOT. I wanted to try to have a thing where is it is a universal thing.
"It is really an amalgam of all the things I love."
Niall added that he was proud that the Auto Barn's café received a five-out-of-five food hygiene rating, and that he now wants to focus on growing the business's audience, with special events such as live music performances and letting it out for birthdays or weddings.