Barn finds are one of the romantic aspects of classic restoration. One day in November 2007 we answered a call from a gentleman who wanted to know if we could restore his 1937 Jowett 8hp. Being a native of Bradford where the cars were made up until 1954, I lept at the chance and drove down to meet the owner near Canterbury. Under a make shift cabin, sound but the worst for wear, was the Jowett.

The owner was given as full a breakdown of the work needed as we could give and on being given the go ahead, we arranged for the car to be loaded on a lorry and taken to the Workshop. There we started to strip down the car and store the parts in plastic baskets, having taken copious photographs.

The flat two cylinder 1000cc engine was taken to Hodson Engineering of Sevenoaks Weald for a complete rebuild. A new seat back was made from GRP and the covers entrusted to Cass Bros of Bromley. Autosparks supplied a new wiring loom.

The car was stripped down to the chassis which was cleaned and powder coated at Cray Metal Finishers.

Sadly, the owner passed away last month and the car is in pieces over the workshop, hoping for someone to take over the project.

So we have a shiney chassis, wheels with new tyres, sandblasted and primed wings, wiring loom, repaired seat frames, doors with the metal cut away and repaired woodwork, rebuilt engine, cleaned and polished gearbox all waiting to be put back together again.

Sadly my customer passed away last month and the project must find a sponsor or the car will be lost

Repainting the wood grain effect dashboard