In my teens I used to run old bangers, it was all I could afford. The cars then were relatively simple to work on and parts were readily available, I did all my own maintenance. Cars today use sophisticated fuel delivery and engine management systems, they have all kinds of safety features and they have electrics that make NASA space probes look simple.

For some time then, I have had a hankering to have a car that I can enjoy working on, and about six or seven years ago I bought an old Triumph TR7 to restore. I managed to get it looking half reasonable and got it on the road, but I was faced with the problem of maintaining not only the mechanics, but also the rather rotten bodywork. In addition the car was barely standard having been previously modified to take a Rover V8 engine. Taking a complete car to pieces and building it back up requires a lot of space.

The TR7 is long gone, and now its time to try my hand again, but this time I have opted to build a kit car instead. There are a number of advantages to the kit car approach:

• Bodywork - the kit car uses little of the original cars body work or structural components. GRP bodies don't rust!
• Space - No need to have somewhere to have the body while building the chassis up, just buy the bits when you need them.
• Originality - no need to worry about whether parts are authentic. The aim is to build the car to your own specification.

Despite the benefits of building a kit car versus restoring an original, there are also some disadvantages:

• Resale value - the whole point of a kit car is that you build it yourself, not buy a used one.
• Spares - If the manufacturer goes out of business, parts may become unavailable, a big problem if you're half way through the build.
• Needs SVA test - kit cars need to meet exacting standards of design and build. Existing cars have already been designed and tested to meet the required standards.