In the night/early hours following Halloween 1999 a moron set fire to my neighbours barn full of straw, one of several set by him that week.
The fire quickly spread to our workshop/garage and almost our house too.
We lost the whole building and contents in the inferno that ensued, it must have been burning quite a while before I heard the roof tiles exploding and went to investigate.
The telephone lines and the connected alarm system were all disabled as the wiring passed above the burning barn, as was the water supply which passed through our workshop.
15 hours, 100 firemen, several water bowsers and a drained duck pond (they could not find the hydrant as the first pump parked directly on top of it and there was no location plan or signage then) the fire was out.
All of my vehicle collection was gone
My TRD Toyota Supra Turbo, my Simtek F1 car, my son's Morris Mini Cooper S (he was just 7 at the time and it was to be his first car when restored), my West Surrey Racing Ralt RT3, my Ex works Triumph TR2, our Ferguson Little Grey T20 Tractor my friends Radical with it's brand new still crated engine along with all my tools equipment and memories
However we were all safe and everything, well almost everything, could be replaced.
Lessons to be learned......
We had no insurance on the garaged vehicles, far too expensive for the risk/value involved, after all we had fire alarms, sprinklers and security was pretty good.
If at all possible don't park/store all your possessions in one place especially documents and vehicles together.
Check that your alarm system does not rely on one source alone.
If you are fortunate to have sprinklers, check that your water supply is protected before the building entry point.
After a descent period of time we began to sort things out and the rebuild needed fresh planning permission
and took almost 2 years.I then set out to replace at least some of the lost items, starting with vehicles...then things stared to look a little brighter and after time we decided to find a Cooper S for my son and I to prepare for his ultimate time to start driving, knowing how long these things take 8 years seemed reasonable
We found a car locally through an acquaintance and eventually purchased it in several boxes and complete with a chickens nest on the rear parcel shelf. It came from a shed not a barn though.
After another couple (well several) years passed by we decided to start work and subsequently noticed that all was not well, the car had been 'messed about' quite a lot.
After the first day I decided to google the registration number (early days of google back then) and we were shocked and amazed to see on the screen a picture of a race car, but with a different registration just one number in the sequence less, namely KDK 319F, there was no story just a link to a website.
Well as they say 'the rest is history' we now know we had the sister car KDK 320F formerly owned by British Vita Racing, 1967-1968, Barrie 'Whizzo' Williams, Will Dick who eventually sold it to a local policeman whose sister brought it to Somerset upon his death... as far as we can gather.
Due to overwhelming work commitments we have been unable to start work on the renovation until yesterday
However with the 50th anniversary of the cars historic and unique victory in the 1968 European Touring Car Challenge, ETCC. We felt that this should not go unrecorded and have decided to mark this event by trying to get together a British Vita Racing display at Goodwood FOS next Summer.
In the meantime and having bored you with our story a few pictures of the progress/discoveries we made yesterday
Thanks for reading this far....well done..... I almost nodded off typing this
There will be questions...lots of them hence the technical talk posting ...please move if appropriate/necessary Mark
