It was surviving a heart attack that led Sammy Cameron to his first motoring project back in 1992.
He had been working crazy hours at his business, Sammy’s Fish and Chip Shop and decided he needed to try and avoid going down the same road he had been going.
He spotted an advert in a magazine for a kit car for sale and decided to have a bash at it.
The 61-year-old said: “Cars had always interested me. I’ve had no formal training, just quite interested bits and pieces I learned from my father doing his own repairs. But he wasn’t a mechanic either. These things fascinated me a bit.
“I did have an old car at the time that I was going to do up but it became a bit too much really. The idea of getting the kit was that you were working with a new frame, everything was new about it. You weren’t cutting out rust or working with things that other people had repaired. You were getting a fresh start on what was basically a new project.”
The Robin Hood Kit Car came with instruction videos which were handy for Sammy having never taken on a project like this before. The kit supplies you with a frame but you have to put on your own panels and other elements.
Advised by the video, Sammy chose a Ford Sierra to be his donor car and advertised in ScotAds for one. He eventually found one in Kyle and managed to use the engine, gear box and suspension from it.
Over the next two and a half years, Sammy worked on the car in his spare time. He said he really enjoyed the experience but wouldn’t describe it as “easy”.
He said: “It was Ok. As long as you stuck to the instruction videos it was fine. It was good having the videos because you had that reference point, you could just go back and stop it there, rewind a bit and have a look at it again. You could just get it right. It was interesting and I did enjoy it. Best bit of all was when I turned the key and it started. That was an amazing feeling.
“It is absolutely brilliant to drive. It’s slightly bigger than a go-kart and it feels quite go-kart like. It’s low to the ground, you get the wind in your hair. It’s totally different from anything else.”
Since then, Sammy has taken the car far and wide including a trip to Ireland earlier this year as well as regular appearances as local shows and rallies and a holiday to Orkney.
He said it’s the ability to be able to fix the car that gives him confidence to take it anywhere.
“One of the good things about it is nothing phases me about it. If something goes wrong, I know how to fix it,” he said.
“You gain a lot of knowledge when you build it. You know everything about it. That doesn’t make me an expert but nothing phases me about it.
“When we take it to shows, most people don’t know what it is. There always seems to be a bit of interest in it. The favourite guess is a Morgan. But really when you look at both of them, they are like chalk and cheese. People are always coming along and chatting about it.
“When we were coming back from Orkney, we met someone from Germany and he was saying ‘oh I love your car’ and he said ‘I just love that smell’. He went on to say he had some car that he was working on. You meet lots of people who have done things or doing similar things.”
Sammy said he plans to keep the car – and even if he hadn’t, he admits he has created a situation whereby he can’t sell it.
He explained that to register the car, he needed to create a new chassis number for it and was advised to use numbers and letters to make up the 17 digits.
“I used my granddaughter’s name and her date of birth. So I guess she’ll be getting it, “ he said.
“Sophie is 10 now and she calls it the Noddy car.
I wouldnt part with it anyway. You get to reap the rewards of the work when you go out on a cracking day.”
Now with some experience behind him, Sammy has already moved onto his next project – this time restoring a Mini Scamp.
The car previously belonged to someone he knew from Acharacle on the Ardnamurchan peninsula and after being asked if he wanted it, he decided to take it on.
He said: “I’ve had it for nearly two years. It’s very different because I don’t have any plans. Anything I want to change on it I have to think through and try and work out if it will work before I go away and get things started. It’s quite challenging and different. It’ll have my mark on it by the time I am finished with it.”
my First car… 1963 Austin A35 Van
my Dream car… A Bentley