A Newmarket-based mobile mechanic who built his business into a £197,000-a-year operation is on course to double annual turnover after converting a £300,000 private race facility into a multi-ramp commercial workshop.
What started as a one-man mobile operation has grown into a workshop employing three technicians, a dedicated mobile mechanic and front-of-house staff.
Mouths Motor Company recorded £197,000 turnover in 2025/2026 and has already reached £180,000 in the first six months of the current financial year.
Owner Jason McManus’ route into self-employment began with a lifelong interest in cars, sparked by tinkering with them alongside his grandfather from the age of six.
After leaving school at 16, he completed an apprenticeship with Peugeot, achieving Master Technician status, before spending six years in the Audi dealer network and later joining a family-run independent garage.
“People were coming into the garage and asking for me personally,” he said. “I woke up on a Monday morning and went, ‘I’m done earning money for other people. I might as well just go on my own’.”
In February 2018, Jason bought a Vauxhall Astra van and set up as a mobile mechanic, while relocating his family and preparing for the birth of his daughter.
“I just went, ‘Sod it, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it,’” he recalled. “It was a case of, well, it has to work. I was throwing everything into it while we were buying a house and having another child.”
The mobile model kept overheads low, but running the business also meant handling calls, quoting, sourcing parts and chasing invoices alongside working on vehicles.
Three months in, Jason signed up to ClickMechanic, initially to fill gaps in his diary.
“I went on it just to fill a few diary gaps,” he said. “Then it pretty much became the main source of work.
“When you’re on your own, doing everything yourself, you think having full control is fantastic, until you realise that time is better than anything in the world, especially with a newborn baby.”
With bookings prepaid and follow-up work quoted to customers through the platform, Jason no longer had to spend the same amount of time on the administrative side of securing work.
“The biggest thing was that I didn’t have to spend hours on advertising, pricing jobs up from scratch, or chasing people for payments,” he said. “Every booking was prepaid. I’d do the diagnosis or service, submit the report, and the platform handled quoting the customer for follow-up work.”
The business expanded across a 50-mile radius covering Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, with Jason route-planning calls to maximise his working day.
At peak periods, monthly turnover through ClickMechanic regularly reached £25,000 to £30,000, while one month during the Covid lockdowns approached £50,000.
But the success of the mobile business came with a physical cost.
“I was quite happy chugging around on the road, but my back was going, my knees were shot, and something had to give,” Jason said. “Physically, you can only roll around on the floor in all weathers for so long before your body has had enough.”
Jason already owned a potential solution in Newmarket. He had bought a £300,000 workshop building several years earlier to build and store private race cars, but after stepping away from racing, it had become an expensive storage unit.
At Easter 2025, he converted the premises into a commercial workshop.
“I spent two weeks gutting the workshop, clearing out race gear, and setting it up properly for customer vehicles,” he explained. “I’d invested £300,000 into a premises that was just sitting there, and I needed to see a return on the asset.”
While direct retail work now forms the backbone of the diary, ClickMechanic fills workshop capacity, generating around £5,000 a month.
“Nowadays, we use it selectively to fill quiet spots,” said Jason. “If there’s an unexpected gap in the workshop diary, or if a customer books work bundled with an MOT, we can pull that vehicle straight into the workshop to keep ramps productive.”
For Jason, the experience has shown that ClickMechanic can play a different role as a business develops, from providing the work needed to establish a mobile operation to helping keep a growing workshop productive.
His advice to technicians considering the move into self-employment is straightforward.
“If you’ve got the technical skills, the tooling, and the ambition, just take the jump and do it,” he added. “Be prepared for late nights, but the rewards are worth it.
“If you use ClickMechanic to build your workflow and secure your payments early on, you take away the stress of wondering where your next invoice is coming from, leaving you free to focus on the work.”
For further information about ClickMechanic, visit: https://www.clickmechanic.com/mechanics/home.
