From Wick to Inverurie, Stan Bradley spends his days driving.
Easily covering hundreds of miles a day, his job as a vehicle inspector for the north of Scotland means that Stan knows many of Grampian’s roads like the back of his hand.
Yet despite spending the majority of his nine to five working day behind the wheel, driving is exactly what Stan likes to do in his downtime.
However instead of clocking up the miles in his company car, Stan, 55, enjoys nothing more than cruising along in his 1979 Chevrolet Camaro.
Classic American cars are his weakness, but Stan has been interested in cars of all kinds since he was a boy.
“I was a passenger in a Jaguar E-Type when I was about seven or eight years old,” he said.
“It totally inspired my love of cars.
“My dad was crazy about cars too and had a friend who owned a garage.
“Apparently he used to catch me in there just pushing wheels around and trying to get involved.”
Aged 17 Stan began training as a mechanic, and revelled in being under the bonnet.
In the years following he was the proud owner of various different sporty cars, eventually getting into rallying.
“I actually got into rallying when I was living in Germany,” said Stan, who now lives in Forres.
“It was in the 1990s and I was working for the RAF at the time.
“The races were cheap entertainment between the forces and the locals, and by the end of my time there I wasn’t just watching, I was taking part.
“Back in Scotland I still followed rallying and got into the scene here.
“My son Andrew was my navigator for about five years, and my daughter Rachel helped out sometimes too.
“When I was selling my last rally car my wife Carol actually had a go at navigating me too, but afterwards she said it was just a one off and ‘never again!’,” he laughed.
However despite the distraction of rallying, American muscle cars were still on his mind and Stan found himself spending every spare moment on eBay searching for the perfect model.
“When my rally car sold I earmarked that money to go towards another car,” he said.
“But the money was burning a hole in my pocket and I was never off eBay.
“I was drawn to the Chevy as soon as I saw it.”
Keen to secure the motor, Stan took a chance and made the seller an offer without seeing the car in person.
“For all I knew it could have been an old rust bucket with fake pictures on eBay,” he said.
“But luckily it wasn’t!”
Three years later and the Chevrolet is still going strong, having needed very little maintenance in its time under Stan’s ownership.
Now a regular at car shows across Scotland, Stan has fully embraced the classic car scene.
“We’ve been to shows all over,” he said.
“Elgin, Tain, Inverurie and loads of others.
“It’s not the easiest car to drive though, it doesn’t handle like a modern car and is made for big American roads really.
“It’s always a fun experience trying to park it at Tesco in the little spaces.
“And when I come back to the car after it’s been parked there are always sticky finger prints on it from people who are curious and want to see what the inside looks like.
“I’ve had people pull up alongside me on the motorway to take a picture while driving too.”
Yet despite all the attention Stan’s beloved Camaro receives, for a brief time he was considering selling it.
“I was tempted to sell it for a while,” Stan said.
“You see eventually I want a similar car but from 1962.
“It’s the year I was born but also the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis and around the time when America stopped trading with Cuba.
“I’ve been to Cuba a couple of times on holiday and the cars there are just fantastic.
“Because the county was banned from importing American cars in 1962, there are still thousands of them in the country but they are all classic models which are more than 50 years old.
“So that’s my real dream, to own one of them.”
