Charles Harrison “Harry” Metcalfe is a British automotive journalist, entrepreneur, and farmer, born on 17 November 1958.
He is best known as the founder of Evo magazine and the creator of the YouTube channels Harry’s Garage and Harry’s Farm.
Who is Harry Metcalfe?
Harry Metcalfe is an English farmer, publisher, and car enthusiast who built one of the UK’s most respected performance-car magazines from scratch. He co-founded Evo in 1998 and led it as editorial director until 2013.
Away from publishing, Metcalfe has spent decades farming arable land in the English countryside. His farm still funds much of his private car collection today.
Since 2014, he has reached a new audience through Harry’s Garage, a YouTube channel dedicated to car reviews and his own vehicles. He later launched a second channel, Harry’s Farm, focused on his agricultural work.
Early Life of Harry Metcalfe
Metcalfe grew up with strong family ties to both farming and design. His grandfather worked as a horse dealer in Yorkshire, and his father, Charles, trained in fashion at Liverpool College of Art before eventually returning to farming.
That mix of art and agriculture shaped Metcalfe’s own path. Growing up around his father’s design world exposed him early to fashion shows and visual craftsmanship, while family life kept him close to farms and animals.
His interest in engines started young. By his early teens, he was already tinkering with motorcycles at a relative’s bike barn in North Yorkshire, an experience he has often pointed to as the root of his lifelong car obsession.
That hands-on mechanical curiosity never left him. It eventually pulled him toward automotive journalism, even though his career began in farming rather than publishing.
Harry Metcalfe Age
Harry Metcalfe is 67 years old as of 2026, based on a widely reported birth date of 17 November 1958. His zodiac sign is Scorpio, a sign generally associated with intensity, determination, and strong loyalty.
Metcalfe has kept working well past the age most people retire. At 67, he continues to run his farm and produce weekly YouTube content, decades after his career in publishing began.
Harry Metcalfe Ethnicity and Nationality
Harry Metcalfe is British, specifically English, and holds UK nationality. He grew up between Wales and Liverpool before settling into farming life in the English countryside.
His family background traces to Yorkshire, where his grandfather worked in the horse trade. That regional, working agricultural heritage runs through both sides of his upbringing.
Metcalfe has spent nearly his entire adult life farming in England, which has become as central to his public identity as his car journalism.
Harry Metcalfe Education
Metcalfe originally hoped to study automotive engineering at Loughborough University. However, he failed his A-Level Maths, which closed off that path.
His father then enrolled him at Shuttleworth Agricultural College in England instead. Metcalfe completed a four-year Higher National Diploma in Agriculture there, graduating in 1980.
That agricultural training turned out to define his early career far more than cars did. After graduating, he took a job as an on-farm grain buyer, laying the financial groundwork that would later help fund Evo.
Shuttleworth College, now part of the University Centre Bedfordshire agricultural network, remains an established name in UK land-based education.
Harry Metcalfe Career
Early Career in Farming
After finishing his HND in 1980, Metcalfe worked as a grain buyer before becoming self-employed in the trade around 1984. He also raised sheep on rented land before shifting his focus entirely to arable farming.
By the mid-1990s, he was farming several hundred hectares. That farming income gave him the financial freedom to indulge a growing passion for performance cars, which he began buying and testing on the side.
His farming background also connected him to the local automotive press, who took notice of the quality of cars he was accumulating. Those friendships eventually pulled him into motoring journalism almost by accident.
Founding Evo Magazine
In 1998, fellow motoring journalist John Barker told Metcalfe that Performance Car magazine was shutting down. Seeing an opening, Metcalfe decided to launch a new title to fill that gap in the market.
He financed the first three months using a 275,000-pound loan originally intended for a grain store on his farm. The working title was Roadsport before the team settled on Evo, a name inspired partly by single-word brand names like Orange and Red.
Evo launched in 1998 and quickly built a loyal readership around detailed, real-world road tests rather than glossy marketing copy. That editorial approach set it apart from rival titles almost immediately.
By 2001, the magazine had grown enough that Future Publishing approached Metcalfe about a sale. Instead, he asked his friend Felix Dennis to make a counteroffer, and Dennis Publishing acquired Evo in April 2001 with a readership of around 40,000.
Metcalfe stayed on as editorial director within Dennis Publishing’s automotive division. He remained in that role for over a decade, shaping the magazine’s voice and its close-knit reader community known as the Evo gang.
Current Ventures: YouTube and Harry’s Farm
Metcalfe left Evo as editorial director in September 2013. He then worked as an outside advisor to Jaguar Land Rover, helping establish its Special Operations division, before leaving that role in 2018.
On 4 August 2014, he launched Harry’s Garage on YouTube, focusing on in-depth reviews of both his own cars and manufacturer-loaned vehicles. The channel grew steadily, passing 500,000 subscribers by November 2021 and later surpassing 800,000.
He later started a second channel, Harry’s Farm, which documents the day-to-day running of his farm alongside his agricultural equipment and land management decisions. Between the two channels, his videos draw millions of views every month.
Metcalfe still writes occasionally for outlets such as Octane magazine and The Sunday Times. He also received a Best Use of Social Media honor from Octane in November 2023.
Harry Metcalfe Companies and Investments
Metcalfe’s primary business asset has long been his farm, which he has run for decades in the English countryside, most often described as covering around 400 acres in the Cotswolds. He has also run a property development company in the past, a venture he operated together with his wife.
His media work sits alongside the farm as a second income stream. Evo, which he sold in 2001, remains one of the UK’s leading performance-car titles, while Harry’s Garage and Harry’s Farm now generate advertising and sponsorship revenue of their own.
Harry Metcalfe Business Achievements
Founding Evo in 1998 remains Metcalfe’s most significant professional achievement. The magazine grew from a startup funded by a farm loan into one of the most respected performance-car publications in the UK.
He also helped set up Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Operations division as an outside advisor after leaving Evo. That work connected his editorial credibility directly to a major manufacturer’s specialist engineering arm.
More recently, his transition into YouTube has proven durable rather than a passing side project. Harry’s Garage has run for over a decade and built a subscriber base in the hundreds of thousands.
Harry Metcalfe Awards and Recognition
Metcalfe received the Best Use of Social Media award from Octane magazine in November 2023, recognizing his work across his YouTube channels.
He has also been credited within the automotive press as one of the more consistently recommended car-focused YouTube creators to follow.
Harry Metcalfe Wife
Harry Metcalfe is married to Patricia, and he met his wife while studying at college; the couple later ran a property development company together.
The couple has childrens whose names are not revealed as yet.
He keeps his family life largely private, with only occasional mentions in interviews and on his farm-focused YouTube content.
Harry Metcalfe Net Worth
Harry Metcalfe’s net worth is around $35 million as of 2026.
His income is generally attributed to a mix of sources. These include the proceeds from selling Evo magazine in 2001, ongoing farm income from his several-hundred-acre operation, advertising and sponsorship revenue from Harry’s Garage and Harry’s Farm, and the value of his private car collection.
That car collection itself is considered a meaningful asset in its own right. It has included vehicles such as a Lamborghini Countach, a Ferrari Testarossa, several Porsche 911 variants including a Sonderwunsch-personalized Turbo S, and a Lancia Delta Integrale Evo, among others.
Harry Metcalfe Cars Collection
Metcalfe’s garage has held a wide mix of classic and modern performance cars over the years. Highlights have included a Lamborghini Countach, a Ferrari Testarossa, a Lancia Delta Integrale Evo, and a Jaguar Project 8.
He has also focused heavily on Porsche 911s, including an early 930 Turbo and a 993-generation Turbo converted to GT2 specification. He has said he consciously bought across different manufacturers while he ran Evo, before later returning to his long-standing love of Porsche.
Metcalfe has also owned boats in the past, a hobby he has discussed publicly, though he has said he sold off that collection due to high insurance costs.
Harry Metcalfe Social Media
Metcalfe is active on YouTube through his channel Harry’s Garage, which he launched on 4 August 2014 and which has grown to several hundred thousand subscribers.
He also posts on X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @harrym_vids, where he shares updates on his cars, his farm, and new videos.
He has additionally been reported as active on Instagram, though a verified official handle could not be confirmed here, so it has not been linked.
The Bottom Line
Harry Metcalfe’s defining achievement remains founding Evo magazine in 1998, funded by a loan meant for a grain store, and building it into a title respected enough that Dennis Publishing acquired it by 2001.
What sets him apart is the unusual combination behind that success: a career built on farming income and countryside life, rather than a background in publishing or automotive engineering.
Today, he splits his time between running his farm and producing regular videos for Harry’s Garage and Harry’s Farm, keeping both his agricultural roots and his car passion in front of audiences each week.
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