The Rest

The body, whilst not original, is a faithful copy and the original is now safely reassembled and mounted on the wall of HP6161’s garage. Deemed to be of little use to the Home Guard during WWII, the car was literally put out to grass and retrieved at the outbreak of peace with the help of a mine detector and a scythe. During the intervening period the floorboards, instruments and upholstery were damaged beyond recovery and replaced with blackout material, seating from a 1930’s Jag and redundant aircraft instruments, respectively. More recently new upholstery has been commissioned and both seats provide a surprising amount of support and comfort - on short journeys, at least.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there isn’t really very much else fitted to the car. There were no electrics originally and whilst, during its more practical reincarnations, a dynamo was fitted (these days replaced by hidden high capacity batteries powering discrete side, brake and indicator lights) but there is no electric starter (nor no way of fitting one as the flywheel has no starter ring). However, after carrying out the ‘pre-flight’ checks and procedures, a sharp quarter-turn on the handle invariably brings HP to life.