The Paddock Expands Its Expert Staff & Collector Car Restoration Services

Michael Donnelly, owner of The Paddock, a blue-ribbon restoration shop for classic and vintage cars in New Britain, Connecticut, has announced the addition of technician Mark Dion to the company’s staff of car restoration experts.

Dion, 50, of East Haven, Connecticut, joins The Paddock team as the Service Manager of the mechanical shop, helping to expand the highly rated on-site services for which The Paddock has become known since it opened in 2018.

Following his passion that he discovered at age 15, Dion began working on his 1968 Plymouth Barracuda, a friend’s 1970 Ford Mustang and another friend’s 1968 Chevy Camaro. “We couldn’t afford to pay a shop to fix our cars, so I would fix my car and my friends’ cars,” he explained.

By the age of 22, Dion was working for his girlfriend’s parents at Bousquets Service Center in New Haven, Connecticut, as the lead technician. Sixteen years later, he accepted an opportunity to work at Blackhorse Garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he found a new passion for restoring high-end cars such as Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin, as well as servicing other exotic brands.

Dion remained at Blackhorse from 2013-2021 before taking on restomod work at Altezza Restorations in Fairfield, Connecticut. “We were restoring cars and building restomod Land Rovers, which really wasn’t my passion,” he said. “It wasn’t what I really loved.”

What he “really loved” was restoring and servicing European cars and doing specialized work on all cars, which brought him to The Paddock in 2024. “The work they do at The Paddock is amazing and more in line with what I love doing,” he said. “I get a multitude of cars that I get to assemble and take apart and put back together. I love it.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” said Donnelly. “The depth of knowledge and experience that Mark brings to the table is incredible, and he’s hard to keep up with. He’s really, really driven. He works quickly with a high degree of quality and just pushes things out. It’s fantastic.”

Dion joins a talented group of 14 employees at The Paddock, which continues to expand. “We’ve grown exponentially,” added Donnelly. “We’re up to 14 and still hiring. We’re getting a good reputation because we’re a one-stop shop, and we have the capacity to do the work. Things don’t linger, and we do very high-quality work on high-end cars. The Paddock has really grown and I think our reputation has been bolstered by the work that we’ve done.”

The Paddock also accepts new-car clients. “You can bring us a modern Ferrari or Porsche and we’ll be able to work on it,” said Donnelly. “This is especially true now that Mark has joined our team, given his years of experience servicing all eras of Ferraris. While our core business is restoring pre-1980 European sports cars and exotics, we don’t say no to anything rare or interesting, including domestic vehicles.”