Mark Lyon, 1963-2022

“DK Engineering was established in 1977 and in 1980 Mark joined as an apprentice engineer alongside Phil Challis (our first employee), another apprentice (Will Birrell of Motorvation Classics) and myself. Mark was also just 16 years old and impressed us with his enthusiasm and willingness to learn about our speciality of fixing Jaguar and Ferrari motorcars.

We were all learning in those early years and together with Phil Challis, who was an engineer capable of virtually any task, we became involved and competent in the restoration of many and various most special Jaguar and Ferrari sports racing cars.

Mark studied motor engineering for a short time, whilst working with us, at Watford Technical College. However, he quickly became too knowledgeable to benefit from the course! I tried to persuade him to carry on with his formal studies but he was adamant that he could learn all he needed about motor engineering from us and from reading books!

From those early days Mark impressed every one of us with his meticulous and accurately recorded technical records of everything we worked on. A process which he never deviated from during all of his years with DK.

Mark worked to the highest standard and quickly became our workshop foreman. Mark helped train many of the DK employees and from early on made it clear that one day he would start his own business.

When he eventually left DK to promote his business GTO Engineering full-time in circa 1996, we wished him success and we were all sorry that he was to no longer be a major cog in the DK machine.

We shared a passion for perfection, engines and Ferrari motorcars.

Mark built up GTO Engineering to be a first-class Ferrari business with a worldwide reputation for quality and really helped the preservation of older Ferraris by both sourcing and reproducing many near unobtainable parts

I will sorely miss Mark, a gentle, talented, and kind friend.

David Cottingham

Our thoughts are very much with the Lyon and GTO family.