Our apprentice, Jamie, won the Simon Diffey Award - 2024

Jamie stood next to Jaguar XK 150

Our apprentice Jamie won The Simon Diffey Heritage Motorsport Apprentice award. Jamie is in his second year as an apprentice at P&K Thornton Restorations working as a ‘classic body work technician’ along with studying at the Heritage Skills Academy, a school dedicated to teaching heritage engineers how to restore classic cars. The award was created by Sarah Jane Adams-Diffey in honour of her husband, the historic racing driver, Simon Diffey, who was killed in a road accident in 2022.

This is the third year the award has been running, with a larger pool of apprentice nominations. Jamie impressed the judges with his engineering knowledge and skills, enthusiasm for the job and team-working ability at the interviews. Jamie will be receiving his award at the ceremony on the 19th of September 2024 for all his hard work and commitment to learning the trade. The secondment partner for the 2024 award, GTO Engineering, participated in the interview process. The director of GTO Engineering, James Crossland wrote “In addition to his clear technical capabilities, Jamie showed a personal spark and eagerness to talk about his work which makes him a worthy winner of an award which aims to help inspire younger generations and demonstrate the benefits of a career in historic motorsports.”

The award came along with many prizes including a one-month placement at GTO Engineering and Bell Sport & Classic in 2025, attendance to an international race, along with travel expenses and support for Jamie to pass the ARDS test to get his racing licence, along with a full racing kit. This is a fantastic achievement for our young apprentice, and we look forward to continuing to work with Jamie for the foreseeable future.

Invitation to Simon Diffey Award

To find out more about company, get in contact via 0115 9262266 or info@thorntonrestorations.com