This story is similar to so many you read about in magazines. From a young age I’ve been obsessed with cars, my bedroom wall was filled with posters of Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s and American muscle cars. As a teenager I used to read Street Machine magazine instead of books and today I still visit the newsagent once a month to pickup the next issue of Street Machine.

I always dreamt of building a cool car, however, I am not in the automotive industry. For the last 25 years I’ve been in the IT industry. So, if I ever wanted to build a car it meant I would need to find the right trades, ones I could trust.

In 2015 I purchased a 1965 Ford Mustang Shelby replica, it had been converted to right hand drive and looked really clean. I slowly changed parts on the car, updated the interior and electrics and got to meet great people such as Ralph from Trutrack and Lou from Dandy engines who worked with me to improve and slowly update the car.

In 2022 I decided it was time to rebuild the car and I worked with ADI to design JR-GT350 and create the vision of what the car was meant to be. Along the way there were lots of challenges, including a dodgy repair shop who had the car and made it worse over 14 months. But there were also amazing people I got to meet and work with such as Jeremy and Rob from Automotive Creations, Ralph, Avni and Adrian from Trutrack, Adam from MPW, Manny from The Trim Shop, Lou from Dandy Engines and Heath from Harrop Engineering.

After 6 months of incredibly hard work, long nights and lots of stress we got the car finished and ready to unveil at MotorEx.

From here I plan to enjoy the car, take it to shows and most importantly, drive it. This will be a drivers car.

I also want to use the knowledge and experience I’ve learnt building this car to help others who want to do the same thing. If you are interested send an email, or contact me via social media and I’ll be more than happy to share the knowledge.

If you are wondering what JR-GT350 means.. It is my youngest daughters initials Juliette Rose.

A special thankyou to my wife Vanessa and two daughters Alannah and Juliette, who supported me to make my dream a reality. Many happy family drives ahead.