Intro

If you are interested in the technology, driving, and history of fast cars then I hope you will find this web site interesting.

If you are interested in cars as the characterless status or fashion objects they have become, its probably not for you.

This site is all about what I have done and learned as a result of the last 10 years of doing my own thing and building cars which are the way I think they should be.

The foundations were laid many years ago when as a teenager in the 60’s I was fascinated by the power and spectacle of the so called "big bangers", in particular the Lola T 70.

The T70 seemed to have everything, gorgeous sexy shape which oozed power, wonderful V8 sound and massive presence. Now I have built my own "T70", I know from the reaction I get from people of similar vintage to myself that I was not alone in this. As a Scientist/engineer, I was also attracted by the fact that it was ahead technically in many areas of design.

Twenty odd years later, I stumbled across the fact that it was possible to build an accurate replica of the T 70, and to cut a long story short that is what I did. In doing this I had three objectives.

The first was to posses a T70, secondly, to enjoy building the car ( this at a time in my career when I was flying a desk and wanted a practical project to work on), and thirdly having built it, hopefully learn to drive it properly. 10 years later, I can claim to have satisfied the first two and number three is coming along nicely.

But having got used to driving a 450 bhp/ton mid engined car with rose jointed suspension, neutral handling and pin sharp response to the controls, I became increasingly frustrated with the handling of road cars. When I decided to replace my 14 year old Sierra XR 4x4, I tested, for 24 hrs each, most of the £22-32,000 sporty cars I could get my hands on, and found them soggier and less communicative than my old car!. The conclusion I came to was that mostly people wanted the image, but when it came down to it, they actually wanted comfort and "refinement". The only car which didn’t disappoint was the Subaru Impreza turbo, which handled far better than anything else I tried, but having got used to the instant "grunt" of the 5.8 litre Chevy in the Lola, I decided I couldn’t live with the turbo lag, so now what?. Having built the Lola, I decided to renovate the Sierra, put in a decent size modern engine and group N suspension and make what I thought a good road car should be.

What I learned in the process is mostly what this web site is about, if you’ve made it this far, you should enjoy the rest!

Information about the Lola and Sierra is under the respective buttons, Articles contains specific topics I have written on based on things I have either learned or done whilst building the cars!

I hope you find the site interesting, please contact me if you would like any further information, including the T70 replica.