In 1983, David Wilkes was an 18-year-old apprentice I toolmaker working in Aston, Birmingham. Like so many young men of around the same age, he was also car-mad, subscribing to all the magazines and lusting after Lamborghini Miuras, Countachs and Lotus Sunbeams, as well as pop princess Kim Wilde.
Although an apprentice’s salary didn't go far he was saving up frantically for a car of his own so that he no longer had to share his mum’s Mini Clubman. “My Manager and mentor at the time, Steve, lived in Tamworth and, as I lived in nearby Sutton Coldfield, he often gave me a lift home as he could cut through Sutton Park on the way home,” said David. “Steve, at the time, drove a Dutton Phaeton kit car that he had built himself, based on a Ford Escort. It was a fun car, very light, being made largely of fibreglass and obviously tuned.
“One evening, when Steve had offered to drop me off at home, we came out
