Harry Metcalfe

Harry's Garage
Personal information
Born	Charles Harrison Metcalfe (1958-11-17) 17 November 1958 United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Occupation	Farmer, businessman
YouTube information
Channel	Harry's Garage Harry's Farm
Genre	Car reviews
Subscribers	332,000 (23 April 2020)
Total views	37,049,380 (22 February 2020)
Play buttons 100,000 subscribers

Charles Harrison "Harry" Metcalfe is an English farmer and businessman, best known as the founder and former editorial director of Evo Magazine, and presenter of YouTube channels Harry's Garage and Harry's Farm.

Farming

Having failed his A-Level Maths and hence unable to get into Loughborough University to study automotive engineering, Metcalfe decided to study agriculture at Shuttleworth agricultural college, graduating in 1980 with an HND.

Deciding he wanted to become a farmer, he took a series of agricultural related jobs to build up his capital funds, whilst also farming on rented land to build his experience. On graduation he became a grain trader, whilst also raising sheep on rented land. Deciding that animals needed too much daily care, he has since focused on arable farming, initially renting land in the Harpenden area. With his focus on buying his own farm, Metcalfe also ran a property development company with his wife, whom he met at college.

In 2002, Metcalfe and his wife paid £2M for a 280acre Cotswold farm near Shilton, Oxfordshire. Having been enlarged now to over 400acres, it is termed a mixed farm, mainly arable with wheat being the main crop. Metcalfe lets the 80 acres of grassland - 70 of which is organic - to a livestock farmer, who farms Sussex cattle, sheep and alpacas. The farm also has 10 acres of wild bird mix and over 3 miles of stone walls to maintain.

In 2007, Metcalfe tried to install three wind turbines on his land, but was turned down by local planners. In spite of this, he built a 5,000sqft eco-home in a traditional Cotswold stone-style for his family, which through use of a Geothermal heat pump and a smaller domestic windturbine, means that energy consumption is down 80%.

Automotive interests

During his early years, Metcalfe had an interest in horses, in part as his grandfather traded them professionally. His father eventually excited his interest in motorcycles, which he used to explore the forests around his family's Welsh holiday home. He developed this into buying and restoring bikes that he could sell for profit, and in school helping others with their cars, which enabled him to buy and develop a fast 2.0litre Volkswagen Beetle.

After graduation he had a succession of Saab 900 Turbos, and then acquired a Lotus Elan Sprint. He then bought a lefthand drive BMW E30 M3, and not wanting to buy its successor the BMW 3 Series (E36), he acquired a Maserati Ghibli. He then in 1994 purchased the first Maserati Ghibli Cup in the UK, through which he made contacts into the motoring media. After this point, he became known as a safe pair of hands who could drive a car, and hence became a regular on automotive magazine road tests. These contacts enabled him to later form Evo Magazine, and write for other publications including The Sunday Times and Octane magazine.

Since 2013, he has been an adviser to Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations.

Evo magazine

After EMAP decided to integrate specialist magazine Performance Car into Car magazine in 1998, Metcalfe and motoring journalist John Barker began forming plans to fill what they saw as a black hole in the specialist motoring magazine area.

Metcalfe formed the business and would run the business side, with Barker joined by writers including Richard Meaden, David Vivian and Peter Tomalin all holding a minority share. Metcalfe created a business plan based on potentially selling his family holiday home in Wales, and although turned down for a loan for the magazine, he initially financed the three month launch period through a £275,000 loan originally designated to fund a grain store on his farm. Employing a research group, the original name was proposed by them to be Roadsport Magazine (also the name of a hill climbing journal). At a group brain storming session, after pointing out that there was a mobile phone company called Orange and a magazine called Red - neither of which included what they did in the title, but had an association with their market - whilst flicking through Autocar magazine Metcalfe suggested EVO based on seeing a Maserati Quattroporte Evoluzione in the future cars section. After proving successful in branding, the name stuck.

The first issue of EVO was produced in November 1998, and after the publication of the third issue in January 1999 - the Car Of The Year edition - the business was cash flow positive, with a worldwide readership of 30,000. Later writers included Henry Catchpole, Jethro Bovingdon, Russell Bulgin and Chris Harris. EVO was aimed, created and edited to be a virtual maverick car club, with typical stunts including buying and driving an original Audi Quattro to the launch of the Audi TT in Italy, and the forming of a supercar pool including a Ferrari F40.

Conscious that the business's success was bound to a single 13x a year publication, Metcalfe was approached by Future Publishing to sell the business. Conscious of the EVO-gang and approach that had been created, Metcalfe asked the Sales Director to approach his friend Felix Dennis about a counter bid. Dennis Publishing acquired the title in April 2001, with a readership of 40,000.

Dennis Publishing enabled the magazine to reduce its costs in both printing, distribution as well as IT; as well as increasing subscriptions and distribution, especially overseas licensing. The online Evo Forum at the point of takeover was consuming over half of the IT infrastructure costs, but not producing any revenue. Unable to form a positive business plan, the Evo Forum was shut down, with its editors and managers forming a new forum called PistonHeads, now a globally successful automotive forum. Metcalfe became head of the Dennis Publishing Automotive, which included EVO alongside Auto Express and the later purchase of Octane magazine.

YouTube

Metcalfe is also known for having an extensive car collection and running the YouTube channel Harry's Garage where he reviews exclusive cars.

In August 2019 Harry started a second YouTube channel dedicated to his farming life where he hopes to educate people about farming. On the channel he shows the day to day running of his 400 acre Cotswold farm from such as cultivation, combining and sustainable beef production.

Cars (Previously Owned)

• TVR Griffith
• Porsche 930 Turbo
• Porsche 993 'GT2' replica (built on a 993 Turbo)
• Ferrari 550 Maranello both Coupe and later a Barchetta
• Pagani Zonda
• Alfa Romeo 105 Junior 2000
• Jaguar XJS V12
• Ferrari 330 GT 2+2
• Ferrari 512 BB
• Ferrari 308 GTB
• Mercedes-Benz SL600
• Maserati GranTurismo
• Saab 900 Turbo 16V
• BMW M3 Evo (E30)
• Lancia Delta Integrale (Evo2 Giallo)
• Alfa Romeo Spider Duetto
• Jaguar XJ (X351)
• Land Rover Defender Spectre Edition

Cars (Presently Owned)

• Fiat 500
• Land Rover series 1
• Mercedes-Benz R107 350SL
• Lamborghini Espada Series 2
• Lamborghini Countach 5000QV
• Jaguar XJ-C V12 Manual
• Jaguar XE Project 8
• Jaguar F-Type Project 7
• Ferrari Testarossa
• Lotus Elan Sprint
• Lotus Esprit Turbo HC
• Lancia Fulvia Zagato
• Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
• Renault Clio Renaultsport Trophy 182
• Range Rover (L322)
• BMW 4
• Toyota GR Yaris

References

This article "Harry Metcalfe" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Harry Metcalfe. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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