click on any picture to see full size...

Just as a taste of things to come, the pictures above show me at Catalunya, Barcelona - Spain's Grand Prix circuit. This trip was the highlight of me owning the '40 - a week of touring French and Spanish circuits with a really good bunch of people. Most people drove between circuits - a lot of miles - I can't explain what an adventure that was. After Catalunya (the last circuit of the tour) I drove back to Calais overnight. It was 1200 miles, and I did it in 11 hours. Now, that's what it's all about... more about this momentous trip later.

Now back to where it all began. The delivery of the chassis...

...a G.T.Developments (GTD) square tube "space frame" chassis. Nothing very high tech, but it did (and probably still does) the job extremely well. Remember that most people were putting in stock 220bhp 302ci V8's, and running on not-very-sticky 50 series rubber.

The first job was to put in the one-piece GRP tub shown above. Then panel the chassis with aluminum sheet, install engine, transaxle, suspension, wiring and all that good stuff. That should take you a week or two, but it took me about 3 years. Then I was at the stage below.

Here's the famous "engine-starting party" that you always have to have when you build a car. From left to right, that's Luke, Keef, Me and IB (holding the gas can since there weren't any tanks installed yet!). Ted's upside-down in the car inspecting the wiring if you look closely. Anyway, it started, so then it was off to...

Goodwood Motor Racing circuit, near Chichester. This was about 6 miles from my house, so needless to say I spent many hours driving around there. It wasn't a true racing circuit, just a test track, since they lost their race license years ago due to local whiners complaining about the noise. Apparently they got it back, albeit severely limited, last year, and racing has returned to the very historic circuit. This is where Sterling Moss had his life threatening crash - there are no barriers, gravel traps, or anything like that. You go off, you hit a grass bank at best, or go straight through a fence at worst! Anyway, this was me with the GT40 replica owners club - you can see they didn't really care what state the car was in!!

looking very pensive...

I drove it with the body on but not painted during the summer, then in the winter I took it off the road for a swift rebuild. I removed the GRP tub and paneled it all out in aluminum instead. The engine was tuned slightly, the car lowered, and numerous other bits and pieces done after the "shake-down" year.

Then GTD fitted the body properly (it's a serious pain to line up the bodywork on these cars), and got it painted. The next picture is at the Brighton Speed Trials. This is a half mile run up the seafront - basically a drag race, but it's just you against the clock. You run on your own. You can see where I was experimenting with aerodynamic aids at this point, much like Ford did in the sixties. The Mark1 looked very pretty, but was very much a pre-aerodynamics age car. The car didn't perform that well due to fuel vaporization - in fact the initial warm-up run was my fastest of the day at 21.3 seconds. Very good fun though, and an amazing atmosphere. Thousands of spectators line up along the road overlooking the drive.

Very soon after Brighton was the trip around Europe mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, a few days before I was due to leave I fell victim to the sort of women who gives women drivers a bad name. She came around a blind corner on my side of the road, and hit the front drivers side. Minor damage to the bodywork, but the aluminum "wings" were written off. Hence you don't see them on any of the pictures below, taken on the trip.

I went on my own on the trip, by far the best way if you can get away with it! It was just cars, cars, cars! Driving 200 to 300 miles between circuits, staying in 4 star hotels, then going to a new circuit every morning - Heaven! The circuits were all booked exclusively for the trip, and track sessions split into Novice and Advanced so I got plenty of track time. My water pump pulley broke after the very first track day (after a gravel trap incident, I admit), but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. On arriving at a local garage I met up with two guys driving the same trip in Caterham Sevens - and we spent the whole of the trip together after that. Lol and Grim (don't ask!) are still great friends.

At Paul Ricard - where I got the car up to it's fastest ever speed. There is a very long straight at this circuit - 0.9 miles - and I managed to wind it up to 165 (indicated) mph. The really funny thing was that the Caterham's have no power (relatively!), but can corner much faster. On this circuit I would thunder past them at the start of the straight, leaving them hundreds of yards behind by the end of the straight (they could get to 130mph ish). Following the straight were a very tight series of chicanes, so we were usually neck and neck crossing the start/finish line. Then it would repeat all over again...

I think this was Nogaro, not a circuit I had heard of before (or since), but excellent. It was here that Roger Clark (the famous Ford works rally driver) drove my car for a couple of laps. It amazed everybody how slowly he drove the cars though - it was as though he had never driven on a race circuit! Very, very UN-smooth driving style: fast into the corners, then snap the back end out (he even tried the handbrake a few times!!), then drop down 2 or 3 gears and accelerate like crazy. Very impressive car control, but everybody was passing us!

No idea where this was now. It may have been Paul Ricard, but I don't think so. Catalunya? You can just see in this photo that I recklessly cut the door tops at one point during that year (the cars got very hot inside). The doors include virtually all the roof, so I cut them off, and ended up with a nice breezy targa style roof. GTD made up a nifty pin arrangement so that I could slot them back into the doors, and no-one would ever know.

The last picture below is my favorite. It was also the last picture I took of the car. Here, Tara (my new girlfriend at the time) and I were off to Goodwood to give my friends one last scare around the track before I sold it. A good time was had by all. And then it was gone. Tony Cooper bought it and sprayed in British Racing Green with yellow stripe, added a 450bhp engine, and apparently is still having fun being the fastest '40 in the club.

Just to sum up what a good car it was, I did 60,000 miles in two years in this car, driving it every day to work, and every other spare moment! Broooooom...

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