There are, you’d imagine, certain occupational hazards that come with running a luxury car storage business. Chief among them? The risk of becoming blasé about extraordinary motors. Ferrari F40s, Aston V8 Vantages, Ford GT40s: cars that, for most of us, would prompt a double take, a furtive photograph or perhaps a quick, disheartening check of our long-suffering Monzo pots. For Henry Warhurst, however, they’ve simply become another part of the working week.

“Back in the day, though,” he laughs, “I’d have gone: ‘Wow! That’s a cool car’. But yes, I don’t even give them a second look now.” It’s understandable. Ever since he was a child, Warhurst has been surrounded by coveted classics — his family has been in the car-storage business for more than half a century. Back in the 1960s, his father — an Aston Martin collector and keen racer — began letting friends from the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester store their cars at his property while they travelled abroad.

What began as a favour, however, soon supercharged itself into a full-blown business. By the mid-1970s, around 50 cars were being stored at the family’s Warwickshire farm and, in 1984, CCS — or Classic Car Storage — was formally founded. Warhurst went on to inherit the business and, in 2018, decided it would benefit from a light rebadging.

“I just wanted a new dynamic,” he says. “And to be somebody that people of my age could approach. So the whole business just needed a sort of revamp and a rebrand.” Henry’s Car Barn was born. And, within just over a year, 44 cars had become 350.

The timing helped, of course. Warhurst had already been using social media to showcase his own collection, filming new arrivals and posting the odd “mad video” from the yard to amass followers. Before long, he realised a community was forming. What had started as a way to celebrate striking cars had become a way of connecting with those who owned them. Today, then, Henry’s Car Barn is less a place to leave your Lamborghini — more a place to meet others who share your motoring mindset.

“It’s not just a car storage business,” Warhurst explains. “It’s more of a concierge business with a heavy VIP community.” Think clubhouses, wine tastings, watch events and a new regular track day at Thruxton — all designed to bring clients and their cars together. Even now, though, the cars sometimes take a backseat. “It’s about like-minded people, really — bringing them together, having a coffee, and they might not even be talking about anything automotive.”

But cars for cars’ sake isn’t Warhurst’s game these days. Though he’s spent decades surrounded by the world’s most desirable motors, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the ones with a purpose. “Things that aren’t your typical collectors’ pieces, but things that have a job.” His favourite, from his own collection, is a 1949 Series One Land Rover with a bar and pizza oven in the back. There’s also a Land Rover 110 down in Cornwall — and an SLS Roadster for sunny days. The common thread isn’t rarity or value, but what works for him.

The same principle, Warhurst believes, applies to a whole new generation of collectors. The people now driving through the doors aren’t necessarily buying the cars their fathers bought. Rather, they’re buying the cars they remember wanting as children.

“It’s about like-minded people – bringing them together…”

“All of the interesting collectors now — those who are making good money — are buying the cars that were on their bedroom walls when they were six or seven,” he explains. “You know, you had a poster or a Dinky toy. You’ve just paid yourself a million-pound bonus — what are you going to buy? Maybe that yellow toy Lamborghini you had when you were five years old.”

Henry’s Car Barn stores Bentleys and BMWs, Morgans and McLarens. Warhurst has his own tastes, but only one car has really surprised him over the years: the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, or the “Widowmaker”, as it’s colloquially known. Most Porsches, he says, “perform like iPhones”. “But this one wants to kill you,” he laughs.

It’s this sense of theatre that keeps the whole enterprise interesting. Because for all the talk of collecting, investment and appreciating assets, Warhurst’s real job is to make sure that owning a car remains enjoyable. Leave a million-pound model untouched in a garage for long enough, and even it can become surprisingly ordinary. “You come to put the key in, and it’s got a flat battery. It’s dirty. It’s been forgotten about. It needs a service. It needs an MOT. And then that ownership with that car becomes, you know, not a pleasure, it becomes a chore.”

Warhurst’s answer is attention to detail. When a client collects a car, it’ll be waiting outside — air conditioning running, a bottle of water inside and, in a fine touch, a packet of Haribo Starmix on the seat. When it comes back, it is photographed, checked, valeted, covered and put back on trickle charge.

“That’s the communication element,” says Warhurst. “And that’s the thing that makes a big difference. Just communicating with the client, and having that trust.” It’s a small detail, but it says something about the way Warhurst sees these cars. They’re not meant to sit untouched. They’re meant to be driven. “And I think we’re definitely appreciating and enjoying being able to enjoy assets that you can touch these days,” says Warhurst. “Such as watches, wine, cars.” (Warhurst is a Patek Philippe man, for those wondering, and partial to a Château Talbot 2005.)

“Do I want a million quid in the bank?” he continues. “Or do I want a million-quid car, which is probably appreciating faster than that money, that I can use at weekends and enjoy with my child?” When asked who he would most like to take for one final drive, Warhurst doesn’t hesitate. “My father.”

Warhurst lost his father when he was 16. But he remembers his DB5. “So I think I’d choose that. And I’d ask him if he thought that I was doing the right thing with the business, and whether he would have grown it and done what I’ve done.”

It’s a fitting thought to end on. Because for all the growth, the rebrands and the hundreds of cars now passing through Henry’s Car Barn, the business still owes its existence to something remarkably simple: a father letting a few friends leave their cars in his barn.

More than half a century on, Warhurst has built that favour into something considerably bigger — multiple sites, hundreds of cars and a community of people united by a shared affection for them. But strip away the scale, the supercars and all the VIP events, and the principle remains much the same. Henry’s Car Barn, after all, is still very good at bringing people together. Perhaps Warhurst inherited that from his father, too.

Henry's Car Barn

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