About

Quartz Automotive Services (QAS) is a family owned and operated business run by Scott Michael and his father Paul.

Both Scott and Paul are car enthusiasts and have spent many years around them, either in a professional or personal capacity.

Scott Michael

Before co-founding QAS, I spent 16 years in the automotive industry. I began my career at Citroën UK, where I remained for over 10 years before joining Europe’s largest leasing company, Motability Operations. Here I oversaw the management of some of the most complex parts of their fleet – vehicle adaptations and wheelchair accessible conversions.

Motability Operations has the highest level of customer satisfaction of any organisation in any industry, so I learnt a lot about the importance of listening to and understanding your customers. They taught me that everyone is unique with differing requirements and at QAS we look to follow this mantra.

Despite Dad’s initial reservations, I entered the automotive world purely so my day to day job allowed me to indulge my passion for cars. For me, founding QAS is the next step to spending as much time as possible around them.

On a personal level, cars and motorsport have always been huge part of my life, whether watching racing on TV, attending car shows or being involved with Dad’s race team.

When he started racing in 1986, I spent many evenings watching the team prep the race cars and when I was old enough it was a given that I would get involved, primarily as a refueller (and general dog’s body!).

I have been fortunate enough to spend time at iconic European circuits and see what goes on, on the other side of the pit wall at some of the highest levels of endurance racing, including the Spa and Nürburgring 24hr races.

Paul Michael

Cars have always been my passion, but unlike Scott, my professional career centred around the exhibition and industrial publications industry. However, they’ve always managed to work their way in somehow. This included starting up one of the UK’s largest company car fleet shows, Company Car in Action at the Millbrook Proving Ground.

I’ve always wanted to race and in 1986 I began that journey, starting with the MG Maestro Challenge and moving up to circuit racing through various saloon car championships through the years, culminating in competing in European saloon car endurance series.

In 1987 I entered the RAC Rally as a works driver for Austin Rover and during my circuit racing career I competed at the Spa and Nürburgring 24hr races 6 and 10 times respectively.

When I retired from racing in 2003, my interest in classic cars grew. I’d already purchased a 1964 Morris Mini Cooper S and the collection has grown from there, albeit the Mini is now a different colour. My biggest issue then became the lack of space.

In 2007 classic cars drove me back to the world of motorsport when I took part in the Peking to Paris rally and the desire to still compete has continued from there. Annually I participate in various European classic car road rallies, but I’m always looking for the next big challenge. In 2018 this materialised in the form of the Grand Prix of South America which involved driving my 1964 Triumph TR4 from Buenos Aires in Argentina up to Cartagena in Columbia - over 10,000 kilometres in 22 days.

2020 will be a year of preparation, but will include a rally through the Pyrenees Mountains. However, this will really be just a shakedown event for the car I plan to use to compete in the classic Safari/Dakar rally in 2021. Who knows where I’ll go from there?