I decided to make the bezel using the trusty hammerform technique and 1050A 16gauge pure aluminium sheet freshly annealed only where it was going to be formed. The hammerform was made from ply with the aluminium securely clamped in the sandwich. I used a number of hardwood dollies and the finished result very pleasing. I’ve now got to source some aluminium mesh to fit and tack-weld into the apertures anyway, so far, so good and still plenty of room for error both in the welding and shaping of the

mesh to fit.Note, must buy enough mesh for mark 1,2,3 etc! It turned out, that our local motor factors stocked the mesh 30 x 90cm by way of a boy racer’s accessory so I bought one, bright anodised unfortunately. As it turned out, there was no waste on the mesh and welding into the enclosure went reasonably well once the anodised layer had been removed. I note that the original idea of recessing the mesh fell by the wayside but the end result looks acceptable in my opinion. After a lot of thought and input from friends from the Locost site, I’ve decided to paint the grille matt black. In other parts of the car, black goes really well with the red so I’m hoping it will look good.

I initially thought of making a radiator grille from stainless steel wire like the one on the Special which itself was a copy of the Caterham and this would have been perfectly adequate. However, I wanted to be a little more ambitious this time and I could visualise a grille made up of horizontal highly polished slats that would suit the Phoenix down to the ground . Three different materials came to mind; aluminium, brass and stainless steel. Both the aluminium and the brass would need surface treatment, anodising or chroming so stainless is the favourite providing I can form it. I’m going to give stainless a go and intend using 20 gauge material. Basically, the idea is to start with 40mm wide strip and fold it in the middle so that in section it is slightly wedge shaped.