Started Young
Hands-on learning began with tools, basic maintenance, and practical garage time at home.
About Ash
Built in the garage.
Refined on the road.
New Leaf Automotive comes from years of practical hands-on work, real enthusiasm for VWAG cars, and a genuine drive to keep vehicles running as they should.
I'm Ash of New Leaf Automotive.
I'm a keen car enthusiast and I have tinkered with cars for just over a decade now. I started out helping my dad with his tools and learning basic car maintenance from him. I am very mechanically minded, I enjoy repairing things, and that is why I started early with studying Engineering at school. He gave me the start I needed and I've ran with it from there.
Apart from a brief foray into French hatchbacks, I've been a VWAG enthusiast for most, if not all, of my tenure on the road.
Built To Solve
Engineering study sharpened the mechanical mindset that now drives diagnosis, repairs, and retrofits.
VWAG Focused
Most of the journey on the road has been centered around Volkswagen Group cars and how to keep them performing properly.
Real Projects
From restorations to salvage rebuilds
From a mk1 Fabia vRS restoration and successful resurrection, to upping the horsepower for a long-distance European road trip, the work has always been hands-on, ambitious, and built around getting the result right.
- Mk1 Fabia vRS restoration brought back to life and strengthened for a four-thousand-mile Euro road trip.
- Category N and Category S vehicles repaired back to safe, roadworthy, and reliable use.
- Factory-spec improvements, coding changes, and retrofit work that make a good car even better.
The New Leaf Way
More than maintenance
The skills that began as a necessity for keeping personal cars on the road have grown into a wider mission: keeping more cars on the road, improving them where possible, and delivering work that feels thoughtful rather than rushed.
Whether it carries a Volkswagen badge, Skoda, SEAT, Audi, or another marque under the VWAG umbrella, the aim is the same: get it back on the road as it should be.
Working Ethos
A happy car is a happy customer.
From an Audi S3 to a Skoda Fabia, the standard stays the same: careful work, sharp diagnosis, and a real interest in getting the car back to where it should be.
Repair properly, not just quickly.
Explain the work in plain English.
Keep more cars on the road for longer.
Treat every vehicle like it matters.
What Drives It
Buried in books.
Buried under bonnets.
Ash brings a mix of academic discipline, practical engineering instinct, and genuine enthusiasm for bigger challenges. New Leaf Automotive exists for owners who want someone who cares about the result, not just the appointment slot.