Kevin  was determined to get the car renovated and he used two local firms – Andover’s Family Repair Service for the interior and Houghton Garage to do the rest. In charge of Houghton Garage is Mr Reg Allen and he commented “ I’m not sure why Kevin chose us. Perhaps its because he lived in the village for short time while waiting to move into his house in Romsey.  It was certainly something different for the lads to do.  And Kevin took a keen interest in every step of the work.”

Kevin said, “I think Reg was a bit worried about having to drive the car from my home to here, it was in that bad a state. Someone had obviously tried to renovate it a bit in my garage but found it too big a job.  I have got the log book and it shows the car has traveled around, although not had many different owners. One of them was in the RAF and went all over the country with it.  Reg and the boys have done a marvelous job on it. I would not have believed it was possible the state it was in.”

Kevin’s interest goes back to his childhood in the 1950s when he was just a miner’s son from Doncaster. “I used to watch all the rich people at the top of the street in their fancy cars and just dream of the day when I could own one. The Sunbeam was really the poor man’s Rolls Royce of its day.  It was about £300 which was quite a lot, but was £400 or £500 cheaper than a Rolls Royce.”

Altogether, it has taken 18 months to restore the Sunbeam which has a mileage of 16,000 on the clock.  The car, which has a brass plate inside the driver’s door saying it was built in Wolverhampton, is now back in what is believed to be its original colours. The engine is thought to be original as well and the indicators have been removed to make it as authentic as possible.  In 1913 all signals were by hand.