As a youth Gary was passionately interested in motorcycles and how they worked, this interest remains with him to this day.

He served his apprenticeship as a Fiat Mechanic with Trinity Motors on the Abbey Lane in Leicester. Somewhat disillusioned by the lack of contact or feed back from the customers who’s cars he had repaired, his thoughts turned to ways of rectifying this. The idea of becoming a self employed, freelance mechanic, specialising on one make "Fiats" had a strong appeal. Business cards and flyers were obtained and his spare moments were spent distributing them. His life of "carding" had begun. Shopping Malls and large complexes with car parks were targeted and leaflets distributed. Enquires for his services started to trickle in.

Gary’s work vehicle was a little Fiat 600cc car, clearly not ideal, but remember he was on mechanics wages, still working at Trinity and building up his own customer base in his spare time. Realistically priced parts were a problem at this time, but after a lot of searching, parts with quality and at a reasonable price can now be obtained.

Hard work and long hours were spent carding and working, his fame spread.

Word got back to his employer who was handed a card which Gary had put on a Fiat belonging to his bosses friend. This clearly was not in anyone’s best interest and his boss called a meeting of all the employees asking the culprit to go to his office, but without naming him. Gary went and was of course asked to leave.

The following year was extremely hard work, no capitol and an unsuitable vehicle. The vehicle
problem was resolved through a customer selling a Fiat 850 motor caravan for a modest amount and this served well, gutted of its furniture, for a couple of years. Work began to roll in and a larger vehicle was sold to him, by yet another customer, this time a Renault Traffic. Gary fitted this out as a true mobile workshop and it was sign written. Looking back this was the breakthrough. Work poured in . These early days in the late 70s were hard but the essential relationship between mechanic and customer was achieved. Gary continues to run his "Only Fiats" business as a mobile Fiat specialist but it now has to help to support his wife and two young children, He has a large customer base and undertakes all aspects of Fiat.