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DPM AutobodyAll work
Aerial view of DPM Autobody's workshop, a cluster of barns and yard among ripened fields and hedgerows near Berwick, East Sussex, on a clear summer morning.

The workshop · Berwick, East Sussex

One building. Every stage of the work.

Panel, paint, and everything between, on the same floor, by the same hands.

Bare metal to finished paint · One workshop

The workshop from the air, on a clear summer morning.

The workshop

What we do

Bare-metal restoration and concours paint on classic and performance cars, in one building in Berwick, East Sussex. Panel work, lead loading, filler, primer, colour, flatting and polishing — all of it by the same hands, on the same floor.

A restoration here starts with the car photographed exactly as it arrived, and ends with a plaque fixed into the engine bay carrying its chassis number. Between those two things sits a file that the owner keeps: every panel, every gap, every decision, photographed as it happened.

  • Panel work, fabrication, weldingIn house
  • Body levelling and metal finishingIn house
  • Primer, block work, guide coatsIn house
  • Colour mixing and sprayingIn house
  • Flatting, cutting and polishingIn house
  • Photographic record of the buildIn house
Workshop atmosphere

Not one car,
just the floor itself

No single build here — welding, grinding, panel and paint, on any given day. This is what the shop looks like between the finished cars: the craft itself, not one car in particular.

DPM's workshop dog, a golden retriever holding a soft toy in its mouth, standing in front of a freshly restored red Volvo P1800 coupé on wire wheels.
A technician grinding the edge of a curved aluminium panel at the workbench, sparks flying, with a pillar drill and hand tools on the wall behind him.
Close-up of a technician in ear defenders and gloves angle-grinding the edge of a primed body panel, sparks showering across the frame.
Two technicians working together underneath a car on a lift, one holding a wrench beneath the exhaust and suspension while the other looks on.
A technician in a welding mask and gloves mid-weld on sheet metal, the arc's bright light cutting through the dark workshop.
A tattooed technician crouched beside a bare-metal shell, angle-grinding a wheel arch with sparks flying past his knee.
A painter in a respirator mask spraying primer onto a car body inside the paint booth, DPM Autobody's logo visible on the booth wall behind him.
A technician sitting beside a primer-grey, part-masked body shell, sanding by hand with an orange guide-coat line visible along the wing.