About Tink’s Garage
Born in London, UK, and now living in Sedona, Arizona, my obsession with anything mechanical started pretty early. Apparently, my very first word was “car” — although somewhere along the way, motorcycles managed to take over.
As a kid, I loved taking things apart to see how they worked, building models, and generally finding ways to turn perfectly good things into collections of interesting parts. My grandmother started calling me “Tink,” short for tinkerer, and the name stuck. Looking back, it was probably a pretty accurate description.
That curiosity eventually grew into a fascination with custom vehicles. I’ve always been drawn to machines that are a little different — whether that means modifying something that already exists, building something from scratch, or simply figuring out how to make an idea work when there isn't an instruction manual.
Motorcycles have been a big part of that journey. Over the years I've built and modified a variety of bikes, from BMW K-series machines and Honda CBs to more unusual projects, like Ducati, Moto Guzzi, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha, even MV Agusta, always with the same approach: understand how it works, work out what can be improved, and don't be afraid to try something different.
But motorcycles aren't the whole story.
I’ve also spent plenty of time playing with cars, including a Lancia Stratos recreation, a Toyota FJ Cruiser, a classic Bel Air Rat Rod and a Porsche 944 built with a Chevy Small Block engine swap. And then there are the race cars.
Racing has been part of my life both in the UK and here in the USA. After arriving in America, I was incredibly fortunate to meet a group of genuinely talented old-school engineers and fabricators. These were the kind of guys who could look at a problem, scratch their heads for a minute and then build the solution themselves.
Working alongside them, I learned an enormous amount. Together we built two race cars, including tackling an engine swap that taught me just how much can be achieved with a little ingenuity, a lot of persistence and people who know what they're doing.
That experience really shaped the way I approach projects today.
Tink's Garage isn't about having the most expensive tools, building everything perfectly the first time, or following somebody else's recipe. It's about figuring things out, learning as you go, solving problems, making things work and, occasionally, making a complete mess along the way.
Some projects are carefully planned. Others start with a vague idea and evolve as they go. Some involve fabrication, welding and mechanical work; others are simply about finding a clever way to solve a problem with what is already sitting on the workshop bench.
And that's really what Tink's Garage is about.
It's a collection of the projects, experiments, modifications and lessons learned along the way — from motorcycles and custom cars to race cars, restorations and the occasional completely questionable idea.
If you're interested in how things are built, modified, fixed and sometimes reinvented, you're in the right place.