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Introduction
Constant care
Small but demanding
Glorious mudguards
Back in time

When the Salvage Squad first see the steam car it is in bits – the result of a spectacular crash when the brakes failed. The Squad have just two months to get it working in time for the London to Brighton veteran car run.

The first London to Brighton Emancipation Run in 1896 celebrated the passing into law of the Locomotives on the Highway Act, which raised the speed limit for 'light locomotives' from 4mph to 14mph. It also abolished the requirement for vehicles to be preceded by a man on foot. Only 14 of the 33 starters actually reached Brighton, and there was a rumour that one of the cars that did complete the race had actually been taken by train and covered with mud before crossing the finishing line.

In 1900 the White Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland Ohio decided to start manufacturing steam-driven automobiles. The Squad's car, a White Steamer Stanhope with Postilion seat, was built in 1902.

Steam cars were fast and rugged but required patience, as you had to wait for the steam to build up each morning. They also required constant tinkering – oiling fittings, repairing and changing of tyres, tightening packing glands and so on. At that time, being a motorist meant being a tinkerer.

The car that the Salvage Squad are renovating was bought in Canada by a Scottish laird and shipped back to Scotland. After passing through various owners it was bought at auction in 1993 by steam car enthusiast, Dr Bob Dyke.

The steam car is small in size, but presents the Squad with some big problems. Jerry takes on the task of repairing the engine; Claire's task is to renovate the boiler and plumbing; Axel works on the chassis and the new braking system. Suggs is charged with getting some mudguards in the original pattern.

After a fruitless search at the Beaulieu auto-jumble, Suggs speaks to Lance McCormack, the expert from the Bristol programme in the first series of Salvage Squad. Lance was trained at Rolls Royce and has the coachbuilding skills required to make elegant new mudguards.

To shape the mudguards from a flat piece of metal, Lance uses a coachbuilder's tool called the English wheel, which creates a double curvature in the metal. It is a huge, solid, cast iron frame with a large top roller and bottom curved wheel, which can be moved up and down. Lance moves the metal backwards and forwards squashed between the wheels, stretching the metal into the desired shape to form the mudguard.

Lance finishes off the mudguard using a dolly (a shaped hand weight) on the underside and a flipper (a handmade bar that flattens out any lumps and bumps) on the top surface. This technique is called planishing.

Today fewer than 100 people in this country practise these historic coachbuilding methods but they produce a finish that cannot be reproduced by machines.

When the car waits at the starting line of the London to Brighton run, it looks just as it did in the 1902 Whites catalogue. Axel, Claire and Jerry are delighted with the historic little car as it gleams in the morning sunlight.