The plan sounded so simple. Can't afford to spend a huge amount of cash buying a car that I can never afford, so why not try and make your dreams come to reality by building a one that I can afford.

See, told you it was simple.

The only difficult thing was deciding which sort of car to build. I have been a keen motorcyclist for the past few years and cars, to be honest, have never interested me that much since getting on a bike.

All that changed when my father-in-law showed me this program that he recorded off the TV where some Mr Joe Ordinary built this kit-car. I didn't know who or what it was at the time but thought that looks simple enough...hmmm, maybe I could do that too.

So I started looking over the Internet for any kit-car related stuff, checked over some magazines, checked some more Internet stuff. Found out that someone makes a Lamborghini Diablo replica - WOW! Only trouble the basic kit cost seemed so high I didn't want to risk that much. (I figured it would have cost around GBP20,000+ to build). So I looked again, This time I checked out the AC Cobra. The kit seemed fairly cheap compared to the Diablo, and was less of a risk money wise. It was then I found that the program the father-in-law taped showed how someone build a Cobra replica. Nice...

So I arranged to borrow the video, doing some of my own research in the meantime and trying to find out what was involved. Realised at an early stage that I'd also need to clean out the garage and maybe find a temporary home for my motorbike.

The other thing on my mind was to decide which manufacturer I would turn to for my kit. There are quite a number of people that supply Cobra replicas and price/quality varies among all of them. Check out some of the links if you want to see who does what.

In watching the program my mind was set to call Pilgrim Cars for a price list to see a breakdown of the package they offered. I also liked the fact that they did a Sierra based kit rather than a Jaguar based kit. Ford parts are much cheaper than Jaguar parts, and seem much more widely available. The price list turned up and the cost seemed reasonable.

So I would just have to wait a couple of months to get the money together to put down the deposit (talk about a tight budget to start with). I wanted to fund the whole projet from my own pocket rather than take out a bank loan of sorts. The only interest I wanted to see raised was in building the kit, not financing it. I reckoned that I'd have the money early January 2001 so in the meantime I could do the preparation required. It would also get the expensive Christmas season out the way.

So, roll on January.