But that's really the end of the story.

The story starts four years ago when Steve Campbell, a close friend of mine, bought a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus for restoration. At this time Steve and I were towards the end of a successful amateur motorcycle racing career that had seen us both racing each other at full national level all over the UK and abroad over the previous few seasons. Steve was not only the opposition during this racing but ran then, as he still does now, his own performance Engineering business - Thunder Engineering (01162 531105) that tuned and maintained the engines I used. This made for some interesting conversation off the track if I happened to finish ahead of him!

Steve spent the next two years fully restoring his car and at the same time developing it more and more into a sprint and hillclimb vehicle. Once on the road his idea was to 'do a few sprint meetings' and at some stage he must have agreed to let me co-drive the car (God knows why!). Thus in 1998 we co-drove the car througout a multi-round season at Curborough finally ending up with the class win at the end of the year.

In June of 1999, half way through the season, an opportunity arose for me to purchase my own car. Steve warned me from the outset -"This will not be a cheap exercise" but it fell on deaf ears... A modest amount of money changed hands and I was now the proud owner of a 1981 Series 2 car that had not been on the road since 1992, was completely stripped out inside (all the bits chucked back in anyhow), and had the sorry remnants of many botched paint and repair jobs evident wherever you looked. At least the engine ran (once the plug leads were put on in the right order!) and it seemed to have plenty of oil pressure. This was going to be a long task.

From the outset I was sure that I wanted to restore the car largely as Steve had done - back to near original outwardly but mechanically modified for competition use. The big advantage was that this time we knew what to do, which bits to bolt on and the pitfalls to avoid. This made a big difference (not seemingly to the cost though!).

The car was completely stripped internally (5 minutes) and the engine/gearbox all glass and non essential parts removed (5 days on and off) and the rolling shell was delivered to Millenium body repairs in Nuneaton (01203 342030) who had agreed to take on the enormous task of restoring and painting the shell.

The basic shell was sound but new jacking points, light boxes, front valance and slam panel were bought from Shapecraft in Hinckley and delivered to Millenium for replacement. The shell was stripped and rust points cut out and replaced (bottoms of doors, rear arches etc.). I made several visits during this phase advising of detail points and ensuring things moved along the right track.

After many weeks (about double the original estimate of time) the shell appeared sprayed in black and it looked LOVELY. Now it was time to add the stripes - I had purchased a self adhesive kit but when it was attempted to put these on it was obvious that they fitted poorly and the finish was nothing like the shine of the rest of the car. A re-negotiation of the bill (quickly becoming a William) ensued and Millenium set about masking and painting the stripes on instead. The only adhesive parts that were used were the Lotus emblems on each front wing.

The day arrived when the car was finished and it looked wonderful. It was sprayed with 'transeal'- a protective water based coating (rather like cling film) that would stay on the car right through rebuilding and the car was collected and brought home.

All the brake pipe plumbing was now added from scratch using braided hoses on the front pipes ready for the new calipers.

Around this time Steve came across a Red 1.3GL Sunbeam in a scrap yard. It was a MOT failure but the interior was MINT - far better that a lot of the Lotus parts. The donor car ('DC' as it became called) became an invaluable source of many parts from the dasboard and heater to the floor bungs - even to the Sunbeam badge on the back. As each part was needed for the restoration the best was selected between 'DC' and the Lotus.

As progess was being made in this direction the engine and all the running gear was slowly making it's way to Steve's engineering unit in Leicester. The rear axle was stripped and sent for shot blasting and painting. A Salisbury LSD was fitted - bought second hand through Motoring News. All bearings were replaced but the original drum brakes were reused (not a big problem on a sprint circuit). The axle trailing arms were strengthened by adding metal to form box sections and these parts together with many front suspension parts were blasted and epoxy powder coated in black. Adjustable rear dampers were fitted on lowered and uprated rear springs. The propshaft bearings were replaced and the whole propshaft balanced.

The running gear at the front of the car was completely revamped. Negative camber cross member, quick rack, Bilstein struts, roller top mounts, lowered and uprated springs, vented disks, and four pot calipers were fitted using all new bushes bearings and joints.

Whilst all this was going on work was started on the engine.

It was decided initially to completely strip it and build up the bottom end first finishing with the top of the engine last. This way the limited funds I had could be spent on as little or as much tuning as could be afforded on the top end once the bottom end was built.

The strip revealed a very good condition completely standard engine that most importantly HAD NEVER BEEN TINKERED WITH by anyone with limited knowledge. The crank was within standard tolerance and together with the flywheel and clutch cover was sent for balancing.

Originally I had intended to build the bottom end up as standard using the original pistons and liners and just fitting new bearings and rings. Things tend to get a bit out of hand sometimes when you get involved with engines and one hot spring day I arrived at Steve's clutching a new set of liners and a small square cardboard box with the words COSWORTH written over the top - mm - BIG shake of the money tree! Compression ratios were checked with the head gasket it was intended to use and was found to be just nicely 11:1 without needing to modify head, block/liners or pistons and with a squish clearance just perfect. In they went with new bearings all round, new water pump kit (MUCH cheaper than complete new pump), belt tensioner kit etc. etc. and lo and behold the bottom end was built!

Steve modified the sump by making it fully baffled to cure surge problems we know existed from experience gained the hard way sprinting his car. (Drive along at 70mph in an unmodified car - anchor up as hard as you can - watch the oil pressure light flicker on as all the oil leaves the strainer in the bottom of the sump... no oil pressure - plain bearings = no bearings!)

Now we had this great basis of an engine it would have been such a shame to put a standard head onto it wouldn't it?! Off to QED for a set of Q420 cams, competition valve springs, phosphor bronze valve guides and vernier cam wheels and into the porting department at Steve's for a FULL MONTY flowing of the head.

Once completed the final assembly of the engine was straightforward and quick to complete. A full works exhaust manifold was fitted that would mate to a 2.5" exhaust system from Dutche components.

The finished engine was bolted to the gearbox (which was untouched apart from a new propshaft seal and a change of oil) and an engine crane hired for the following weekend. The complete engine with exhaust manifold and gearbox was lowered into the engine bay in one lump (10 minutes - I kid you not - much easier that trying to mate engine and gearbox together in the car - believe me!). All of a sudden the car felt 90% complete after this simple act - so much further on than before it was fitted.

It was now less than a month to the Talbot Sunbeam Owners Club National day at Curborough on 11th September and what had been only a dream - to drive the car to the event - now began to seem to be a real possibility. The hours were piled on with the car at home fitting out all the engine bay, the race seat and harness and all the little jobs that seemed to take for ever - helped by a spell of wonderful summer weather - and with one week to go to the show the car was booked in for MOT.

The big moment was almost a non-event really - Sat in the car ready to turn the key - wondering if it would start... The car started pretty much on the button and ran sweetly with it's owner sitting inside smiling like a Cheshire cat!

The day of the MOT duly arrived and an hour before the allotted time I set off out for the FIRST RUN. All seemed well apart from no brakes - needed bedding in - no problem - drive along with my foot on the pedal and no speedo - NO SPEEDO - OH NO! - back to home - up on the axle stands - badly worn speedo cable end - never thought to check it! - quick temporary repair and off to the MOT. Got there and parked - checked in - got in to run car onto rolling rod and - WOULDN'T START - I hour later in desperation asked for a push and it fired straight up. The MOT was passed with flying colours and the car bump started and returned to home. (The starting problem turned out to be caused by a mal-adjusted clearance on the reluctance pick-up sensor in the distributor but took ages to find).

So there we are - one resurrected Talbot Sunbeam Lotus. The car has now covered about 1100 miles since the restoration, about 800 of which were used to carefully run-in the whole car as all wearing surfaces were new throughout. In November 1999 however the car was to become a star.... Click here for the next chapter.