Supportive spouses/ partners

So many retired petrol heads in one place!

I got frighteningly close to racing in the kit car classes, but ended up spending my money on building stupid road cars instead… my final parting gift to society being a Sylva Striker (Lotus 7 style lightweight), with a heavily modified Rover 3.5 V8 in it… putting out nearly 300HP at the rear axle, and weighed less that 1000Kg all up. That thing was ******* lethal!

I had to cut and rebuild the space frame chassis to fit the engine in, moving the bulkhead back 3", and still ended up having to do things like a remote oil cooler, not for performance, but because it was the only way it would fit. the exhaust downpipes were so tight that two pipes went one side of the steering column, and two the other, and you had to remove the steering column to take the exhaust manifold off on the drivers side!

I’ve still got a row of 4 burn marks on my garage wall from where I started it up without any exhaust manifold… ears rang for about 4 days!

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