Charity that helps war veterans establish careers in motorsport

“It took a while for an opportunity like this to fall into our laps,” says Tony Compson, a former Falklands War sailor and crew chief for the project. “All our cars are donated but most are manual. “The fact that the BRZ was also damaged makes this project especially valuable.”

Compson is responsible for eight veterans working on the project, including a former paratrooper and tank commander, as well as former regimental members including the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) and the Royal Logistics Corps.

Each brings their own skills and experience to the job. Almost: The bodywork is beyond even them, so while they’ll do their best, the final shaping, filling and painting will be done by Dragontek, a local firm that’s providing its services free of charge.

Veterans may need help because the BRZ, which was registered in 2016 and has only 25,000 miles, is in a bit of a mess. There may only be one Cat N, but even at this level a lot of damage can be done and that’s what you can see.

What the men initially discovered by chance was that at some point the headliner around the passenger side curtain airbag had been upgraded to give the impression that it had not deployed. It’s an outage that sets them back, but they use the time to get all the remaining airbag sensors installed and operational.