Martin

A little over three years ago, my lovely wife turned to me while driving along the motorway and said she wanted to take up a hobby together. First thoughts of “oh no, she wants me to take up Salsa lessons with her” were quickly washed away when moments later the immortal words of “I want to build a car” were uttered.

I nearly drove off the side of the motorway.

We got home an hour later, and 20 minutes later I showed her a picture of the AC Cobra and said “What about this?” Immediately, I got a “Yes that looks nice”.

I definitely married the right one.

A few more hours of Google searches and I was a bit disappointed with what I’d found so I extended my search to the US. Then I came across Factory Five Racing and the obsession began.

I know nothing about cars, I couldn’t even call myself a car guy. But I do remember reading a comic book when I was only about 5 years old and seeing a picture of the AC and thinking it was the most beautiful car in the world.

I reached out to Ian Hunter here in the UK who put up with my naive questions and invited me around to his house to see his MK3.1. They are even better in person, and his car, well – let’s just say that at 120db he was complaining that it was too quiet and he wanted louder pipes. As soon as I walked up his driveway and saw his car parked I couldn’t stop grinning. I think I smiled for about a week after that visit.

Too much time spent on the other forum, and I was going bonkers. I didn’t really post much, but I read almost every post on the site from the day I found it, and even went back through thousands of posts from the archives.

I went from knowing nothing, to knowing exactly what I needed (ok, I should probably say wanted). If I am only getting one shot at this, I better make it good.

The economic recession didn’t help much, we saved the money a few times and just as we had the cash, something else came up that took priority. I wasn’t too disappointed to be honest because it was definitely the right thing to do, but it was getting time to step away from the keyboard and into the garage and I was a little bit on edge.
Then I got “the nod”.

It’s time to start buying bits she said... so I did...sort of...