Elwood is Philip’s loyal shop dog and everyday sidekick. Always nearby and keeping an eye on things, he’s a steady presence in the workshop and a reminder that some traditions—like a good dog in a good shop—never go out of style.

Elwood

Ian Rothwell is a lifelong automotive enthusiast who grew up wrenching on his father’s vintage Porsche and attending everything from historic sports-car races to IndyCar and Formula One. After buying an original-generation Saab 900 in high school, Ian worked with a German mechanic in Erie, PA, and spent several years working on a wide range of European cars—from occasional Alfas to dozens of Volvos and Volkswagens. Following a graphic design and art history degree from Penn State, he worked as a Triumph motorcycle technician before moving to Maine in 2014 to work in graphic design and advertising.

Ian’s passion for classic machines brought him back to the shop world when he joined Mechanical Arts in 2025. His hands-on experience spans European classics and motorcycles, and his personal collection reflects that eclectic taste: a ’78 Fiat 131, a ’79 Euro-spec BMW 525, a Triumph Bonneville, his late mother’s Harley-Davidson Sportster, and his grandfather’s 1948 Massey-Harris tractor.

Ian Rothwell

Austin Ehret (McPherson College, 2017) grew up in coastal Maine wrenching on a wide range of personal projects — from a classic VW Beetle and a Jeep Wagoneer he bought before he had a license, to NA Miatas and a BMW E28 while commuting between Kansas and Maine for school, and now a Trans Am–inspired 1969 Torino Squire Wagon. He moved to Tenants Harbor with his wife and two dogs in 2023 and joined the Mechanical Arts team.

Austin honed his craft at a high-end New England restoration shop, working on some of the world’s most sought-after cars, including Mercedes 300SL Gullwings, authentic Shelby Cobras and GT40s, Ferraris, and Porsches. He has led award-winning restorations shown at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Cavallino Classic, and Amelia Island, and has prepped cars for vintage racing, rallies, and international motoring events. His specialties are traditional metal shaping and panel-beating, light upholstery, and performance testing and tuning for spirited driving and racing.

Austin Ehret

Tom’s interest in cars began in the late 1990s when a friend gave him an upgraded exhaust for his Subaru Impreza — a small favor that eventually led him to turn that Subaru into a fully fledged show car. Over the years he’s focused on Japanese vehicles from the 1980s through the early 2000s; he currently owns and is restoring a 2005 Nissan 350Z.

Tom’s hands-on training includes bodywork and paint at a local shop, a course in car stereo installation while attending school in Florida, and a summer class in automotive metal shaping at McPherson College. He spent many years maintaining equipment at a local ski area — doing machinery repairs, small-engine work, welding and fabrication — then worked in a steel shop specializing in metal fabrication before joining Mechanical Arts as a technician.

Tom enjoys metalworking of all kinds, from fabricating brackets to extensive rust repair, and takes particular satisfaction in automotive electrical and wiring projects.

Tom Beauregard

Bill recently retired from a 40+ year career in construction engineering, supervision, and management. He has a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Maine and a master’s degree in civil engineering and construction management from MIT. He has been actively involved in local government for many years, as a member of the Select Board, the School Board, and various other committees. 

Bill has been involved with Mechanical Arts since its beginning, as an advisor, supporter and helper doing whatever/whenever was needed. He now works on a part-time basis in which he continues that role along with office management and logistical duties. 

Bill Reinhardt

From there his interests snowballed. He began tinkering on a decaying 1953 Willys CJ3A on the family property, and his parents encouraged him to start volunteering at the Owls Head Transportation Museum when he was just 10 years old—a tradition he kept up through college. At the museum Phil met some of his closest friends, most of them World War II, Korea, and Vietnam veterans six or seven times his age. They taught him far more than mechanical skills: patience, how to listen, and—maybe most importantly—how to take a joke.

During those years, Robert Skoglund—Phil’s self-proclaimed “woodpile uncle,” better known around Maine as “The Humble Farmer”—gave him a 1926 Model T Tudor Sedan that Robert had driven in high school from 1950 through 1954. The car had sat in the same chicken coop ever since. 

With a lot of help from his friends at the museum, Phil got the Model T back on the road and occasionally drove it to high school in Rockland.

To fund his growing car habit, Phil worked on ferry boats around his hometown, eventually earning his 100-Ton Master’s license. He assumed cars would remain a serious hobby—until he stumbled across McPherson College in Kansas, home to the country’s only four-year accredited bachelor’s degree in Antique Automotive Restoration. The idea that he could build a career around what he loved was too good to pass up.

Phil studied at McPherson College from 2015 to 2019, graduating summa cum laude. There he learned from leading instructors, traveled to shows and rallies across the country, and immersed himself in a community of equally car obsessed friends.

While in college, he completed multiple internships at a high end restoration shop in Massachusetts, working on European sports cars from the 1950s and 1960s—Mercedes Gullwings, Ferraris, Porsches, and more. Upon graduation he took a job at this shop for a short period of time, but it wasn’t long before an opportunity arose to buy a building in his hometown. Phil moved back to Maine and founded Mechanical Arts Vintage Auto Specialists in 2020.

Since then, Mechanical Arts has grown rapidly into a team of five and has more than doubled its space to meet demand—continuing the work that began with a Gravely tractor, a chicken coop Model T, and a lifelong fascination with making old machines live again.

As long as he can remember, Phil has been drawn to anything mechanical—especially anything old and mechanical. Some of his earliest memories are of playing with Legos and racing Hot Wheels. By grade school he had graduated to real hardware, enthusiastically disassembling lawn mowers and (less successfully) trying to put them back together.

A defining moment came when his father gave him a 1964 Gravely walkbehind tractor that had originally belonged to Phil’s greatgrandfather. That machine taught him many valuable lessons. It forced him to learn the fundamentals of maintaining and repairing an antique internal combustion engine, and it taught him how to research, evaluate, and apply technical information on his own.

Philip Reinhardt

MEET THE MECHANICAL ARTS TEAM

Hands Behind the Craft