Bye bye crap home-brewed blue paintwork, hello yellow. Actually, the Flux Cap has not been gunned over in a straight-forward yellow. It’s an orangey yellow. Officially speaking Lambretta scooter Yellow Ochre (Giallo Ossido) – a colour used predominantly on GP models throughout the 1970s.

So it’s a period hue, and it’s actually not dissimilar to one of the original colours offered on Enfield 8000s when new…. as this arty promo photo shows.

Working tirelessly on prepping, spray filling and priming the ‘shell, Tim at Roadhouse Retro (www.roadhouseretro.com) has really gone above and beyond his call of duty to ensure the bodywork is arrow straight and ready to stand the test of time. The worst bit was that less than 12 hours after he’d painted the car, a fire broke out in the industrial estate unit next to Tim’s. 

I got the call the morning after a particularly heavy stag night. ‘You heard about the fire at the units?’ I thought he was joking. By sheer miracle the fire was controlled before it hit Roadhouse Retro. The Enfield was literally feet away from getting fried – fresh paint and all. Phew. Massive relief. 

Before the exterior could get sprayed, Tim fired some satin black 2-pack around the re-engineered back axle area and rear wheel tubs. Then the headlining was carefully masked up (I didn’t want to remove it and risk it getting damaged) so Tim could paint the roll cage in black. Detailing takes time, but it’s always worth it.

Ultimately, the project has got behind because of several factors, but I couldn’t bear to cut corners and rush it. I’d rather not do it at all. The Enfield has to raise a smile, but also show people that every area has received attention. Equally, it’s important to me that people see that almost all of the body (and much of the chassis) is still as the factory intended. Rim refurbIt’s not been butchered into a pure race car, but rather sympathetically altered. It’s a EV hot rod, and as British as I can get it. Talking of which, the (British) Wolfrace slot mag wheels were sent off to be refurbished by Wicked Wheels (www.wickedwheels.co.uk). They collected them from my front door and turned the whole set around within a week, with results that blew me away.

The CNC-machined finish has made me think twice about ever risking putting them on the car – I want to lick them and mount them over my fireplace. Much better than bloody horse brasses and worthless porcelain ducks. From here the Enfield will soon go back to Webster Race Engineering to have the (powdercoated) Ford 9-inch back axle fitted, and the twin motors. I’ll then take it straight down to Olly Young at Current Racing (he’s the bloke who built/owns the world’s fastest full bodied EV) to start the battery build. It’s going to be down to the wire to get a proper shakedown run in the Flux Cap before winter, but I’m going to do all I can to achieve it. Just got to sort the problematic front brake caliper/disc situation and choose the right batteries. A owe a lot of people big thanks for their interest and enthusiasm with project Flux Capacitor. It seems to be striking a chord across a cross-section of people, car nuts and otherwise. Me? I’m enjoying every single minute.