RESTO HERO
Brian Kent persevered in the face of extraordinary challenges to produce a gem of a rebuild
Ipainted the car. The top is a 100 per cent match to the original colour. The bottom is a Fiat colour I found. My little Dinky toy Humber was a dark green – that’s what inspired me. It has never been polished.’
Brian Kent rolls up the barn shutters to reveal a magnificent Humber Super Snipe – a vision in two-tone metallic green. ‘I wanted a factory finish, so the paint is just how it came out of the gun. Sometimes people say to me at shows, “I know why you’ve done it like that”. They’re painters who know what they’re looking at.’
And what we’re looking at is really special. The quality of the paint and Brian’s workmanship are obvious on what is a large and difficult classic to restore. ‘There were quite a lot of Series Vs around in the Nineties, but I don’t know where they’ve all gone now. They never made many of these estate models, and this is number 46.’
It is epic. The sheer size of it is one thing – and then there’s the complexity.
Against the odds
Brian didn’t just paint it himself; he made many of the panels too. Then he talks about the other challenges he has faced. ‘In 1997 I was squashed by a runaway lorry and ended up in hospital for about a year, which put the mockers on things. I sold my business and was in a wheelchair for five years.’ And yet here he is leaping around his workshop. ‘Then I found a company in California that makes spinal cord implants. It’s big business now, but I was the first person to have it done, and it got me out of the wheelchair. I have good days and some days when I’m knackered – that’s why restoring it took seven years. But I’m a stubborn bugger, and restoring cars is what I’m good at.’
Brian found the Humber in 2010 through the PVHC club magazine. It was originally bought in Guildford but went straight to Skibo Castle in the Highlands. The owners collected guests from the station in the Humber. After
