Only for those with deep pockets

[Ian Williams]

That is a very difficult question to answer Rory. With my special there is an awful lot of design and contemplation time involved, making up experimental parts to see if I have the aesthetic right, sometimes making things several times until I am happy, as well as lots of distractions helping other people with their projects. The Brooklands I started before the special, it was my accident which caused the chance in direction, the special I have owned since i was 19, it has evolved and changed a few times over the years, it has been my number one car, and it always will be so had to come first. The Brooklands requires a lot of research, I have collected pretty much everything mechanically and five years ago I thought I was in a position where I knew how to build it. However, and this is not to take anything away from the great job Tom did back with the information he had available when he built them, but his replicas are not structurally accurate in their execution. It is fair to say that Tom was forced to make assumptions and educated guesses and I am sure will admit that with the benefit of hindsight and later knowledge he may have done things differently. Of course in absence of any surviving cars and very few pictures that show any below surface detail it is very hard for anyone to be 100% sure how they were constructed. I believe now that I have enough to evidence to make reasonably a decent job of it, mine will be structurally different from Toms, but will be a replica, evocation, whatever we call it of the earlier pre production prototype cars, whereas Toms were of the later production Brooklands. As for time frame it is not so much the physical labour as the obsessing about getting the details right, Joss and I were talking about our cars the other day as both of us have been involved in long builds. Both of us believe having now built the prototype body's we could now repeat the exercise and make a copy of either within three weeks to a month, but its is all the finishing and detail work that takes time. In reality though I guess this long winded answer is saying that I anticipate several years will pass from start to finish of the project! BUT because I can do just about all the work myself I genuinely believe I could build the car for less than the figure quoted by Mike, I should say that I did not pay UK prices for my collection of parts though!