PROJECT CAR | GARDNER DOUGLAS T70
68 September 2019 http://www.completekitcar.co.uk
wrong: there were about 11 panels to fit on
my Westfield and over 70 on the T70...
Just to make life really difficult, I also
opted to have all the aluminium panels
hard anodised via Colour Anodising in
Manchester (a trade contact sourced via
my dad’s motorcycle handlebar business
Renthal). This meant that all the aluminium
panels had to be fettled and fitted (with
hundreds of Clecos) first, before being
removed, anodised and final fitted. Once
a panel is anodised you can’t work on it as
you’ll wreck the finish.
It was worth it, though, and the resulting
grey finished NS4 aluminium panels look
stunning to me. Just to be really obsessive,
I fitted them to the steel chassis with black
coated rivets.
This paneling was very labour intensive
and it wasn’t until the end of the year that
I’d managed to fit most of the hard anodised
panels to the chassis. This involved the help
of family, friends and neighbours on several
occasions to invert the chassis.
As I finished a drunken rendition of
Auld Langsyne, the chassis was largely
panelled, the wiring loom was in and the
brake lines fitted. It didn’t look like a lot
of progress given the nine months of work,
but it was a start.
Christmas presents had all kindly been
cash or car parts from relatives, so I could
start the 2017 build with renewed vigour.
At this point, the strength of the pound had
dropped relative to the dollar, which affected
owner Andy Burrows. It was when he
pointed out that nobody buys a car in one
lump and you can build it in a time frame to
suit your budget that the dream first started
to become reality. Mark ordered a Cobra
and, when Andy offered me a ride in his
T70 demo car – the very same one I’d first
sat in at Goodwood all those years ago, but
now resprayed metallic grey and fitted with a
Moda hardtop – we all knew where it
would lead...
I left £200 lighter having squiggled on an
order form. At this point, you just book a
chassis build slot and you don’t have to worry
about any of the finer details until later on in
the build. This was just as well. A T70 gives
a proper assault on the senses and it’s hard to
think straight when you’re that giddy
with excitement...
Over the coming months, the excitement
built. I sold my Fisher Fury and started
clearing space in the garage and investing in
some special tools such as a hydraulic rivet
gun and a new Memfast rivnut tool. Later on
in the build, I also added the most useful tool
I bought – a combination slip roll, shear and
folding machine from Machine Mart that
makes cutting and shaping metal a doddle.
The chassis was powdercoated in metallic
grey (unlike satin black, it makes oil leaks
easy to spot) and was finally ready for
collection about eight months later in
March 2016, together with a large pile of
aluminium panels. “They’ll keep you busy for
Minimalist interior has been leather trimmed in an Italian style. a while,” grinned Andy. He wasn’t
GD logo has been neatly embroidered into the headrests.
Don’t you hate mag reviews where the owner gets all coy about the
cost. It’s all very well saying ‘I can’t say as the wife might read this’
but that’s not helpful to fellow builders. You need to have some idea
of what you’re in for. So, box in place, here goes... the total cost was
around £65,000.
I hasten to add at this point that I’m not fabulously wealthy and had
initially planned to take about five years to build the car. However,
when that chassis arrived and I started building it, I found that I wanted
it finished so much that it burned. Having a part-finished T70 chassis in
the garage doesn’t half give you a kick up the bum.
I said ‘yes’ to every journalist job that came my way, sold anything of
value in my house that wasn’t structural, or easily missed by my other
half, and ate a lot of cheap tinned food.
If you’re not bothered about doing track days, then you could delete
the dry sump system, which would save about £4000, while cheaper
oil pipe and fuel line fittings could reduce the bill by another £1000
and deleting the hard anodising would save £2500. As the bulk of the
parts are custom or motorsport-specific, there’s not a lot of savings to
be made though.
The Porsche G50 gearbox is also tricky to source and can make a
massive variation to the cost – they range from £4000 to over £8000
second-hand. Motorsport boxes such as Hewlands cost even more but
are a bit brutal for road use.
There were certain things I could have saved money on – such as
replacing the SPA kit dash or Momo steering wheel with cheaper
alternatives – but once you’re building a car such as this, it doesn’t
make sense to cut corners.
The car is insured with an agreed value of £80,000 with Footman
James for a very reasonable £500 a year. When you realise that this
cover also includes three track days a year, it seems a bargain.
SO WHAT DID IT COST?
Dry sump kit is essential for track days. Gearlever bezel designed by Peter’s son Sam.
The mix of classic and modern themes in the cockpit works well.
066 GD T70.indd 68 01/08/2019 12:46 pm