The Following is an article written for Burnham Autos Website: www.burnhamautos.com

What you see before you started life as a 1954 Humber Pullman, complete with divider and a third row of seats, making it an 8-seater Limousine. Owner, Barry Young, found it via an article in Practical Classics' "Rust In Peace" in a Lincolnshire breakers yard in 1996. It had stood in the yard for around five years with no paint and no windows, but the size and shape inspired this marathon project.

Having finally negotiated the purchase, and found a big enough garage, the car was delivered and soon gained the nickname "Jumbo". This derived partly from the size, and partly from a combination of Jaguar and Humber, the two main sources of parts.

Once the body and chassis had been stripped back to basics, which involved removing all of the wood framing, the floor, divider and original running gear, work on reconstruction could begin.

A donor car was sought, and an MOT failure 1979 Daimler Double Six was located and stripped of all usable parts. Barry then proceeded to fit the complete front Sub-frame, along with the IRS to the considerable Humber Chassis. Engine mounts were also fabricated to locate the 5.3 V12 motor up front.

By now we had reached 2002, and two significant steps in the build occurred. Firstly, Barry's wife, Dawn, declared the reason she didn't like the "Rusty Heap of Junk" in the garage was that it was "too round and curvy". The solution to this was easy for Barry, he decided to cut the roof off, make it a cabriolet and hence have a more angular roofline and some sunshine cruising. Secondly, a change of job meant a lack of time for the build so in stepped good friend and fellow TOGAS member, Trevor Gardiner. Being a long-time customiser, and one of those lucky types with a large workshop in his back garden, Trevor agreed to finish off the chassis work started by Barry.

This help with the chassis turned into a major input to the project as Trevor eventually took on fabricating the floor, bulkhead, door frames, inner wings,  and front body support frame, along with strengthening the chassis and adding the IRS control arms and many more small but significant jobs.

In the middle of 2004, the fruits of his labours returned to Barry's to allow Trevor to work on his and other friends' projects. During the time away, Barry had been working on some of the smaller parts and had also decided that a change of engine was required. A 1987 XJS with the later HE type V12 was purchased from ebay and donated its engine, electronics and some suspension parts to the project.

During the next year, the various parts were brought together and roughly assembled into the bare-bones of what you see today, including fabricating the hood frame and assembling all the various parts for the first time.

June 2005 saw the next significant step when Barry met Paul Burnham at the Billing Fun Run and asked him if he would be prepared to take on finishing the project. A few disbelieving phone calls followed and it was agreed that the project would move to Burnham Autos in August, for final prep into a roadworthy vehicle. Bearing in mind that at this point Paul had only seen photos, the look of shock at the sheer scale of the Humber, and the unconventional plans for it upon arrival were unpublishable!

Work began immediately on the project,  reworking some of the outer bodywork, paying particular attention to the fit of body panels and doors on a shell which had never previously been assembled and had been cut and reworked in several ways. In fact whilst the outer shell is basically all Humber, not a single panel remains which has not been modified in some way to achieve the final elegant, pillarless look Barry was so adamant about.

Once this had been done, the bodywork was removed, the chassis stripped and painted ready for reassembly. At this stage it was decided to use the diff which came with the XJS, which would give better cruising mileage in such a heavy rod, so this was swapped into the earlier IRS. All new brakes were fitted all-round to ensure the 2.5 ton machine would also stop.

Within five weeks of its arrival in Kent, the chassis was reassembled and the bulkhead had been finish-painted and fitted as a starting point for the rebuild of the rest of the body. The engine was also fitted and work commenced on the plumbing and wiring.

Another month saw the bodywork coming together so well, that Keith was able to start planning and stitching the hood which is such a stunning feature of the car. One other significant project at this stage was the bonnet. This was very badly warped and it took the guys several weeks of thinking before they hatched a plan involving fibre-glassing a large timber to the outside to hold the shape whilst the skin was re-attached to the frame underneath. An unorthodox process, but it worked and the long bonnet now looks as straight as die.

November saw a big decision to be made on the frontal appearance of the car. After a few brainstorming sessions it was decide to incorporate the three areas of the original Humber grille into a one-piece item inspired by Buicks of the early fifties. (Spot Mr. Burnham's influence here!). After a few sketches, Barry had a friend draw the various pieces on a CAD system and the used the drawings to hand-cut each piece from wood and glue it together to prove the concept. Once everyone agreed that the idea was right, Barry was lucky to call in a few favours and had the whole thing laser-cut from stainless steel FOC. Once polished, it truly became the crowning glory of the car.

Around this time it was also decided that the original plans for steel wheels with hubcaps wouldn't suit the way the rest of the car was going and after much debate a set of Boyd Coddington rims were ordered from the US.

December also saw the results of several more brainstorming sessions produce yet another unique feature of the build. Paul persuaded Barry that he needed opening front windows, but due to the removal of the window frames, these could no longer slide downwards in the conventional way. The final solution involves modified Range Rover motors, and a track system which rotates the whole window down into the front door. A neat and distinctive solution to the problem of toll booths!

During January most of the bodywork was prepped for paint by Steve Dennison and was reassembled, whilst work continued on all those little jobs that take many hours but are not obvious to the eye. During February work commenced on the interior. The seats are exactly as they came from a Jag XJ40, whilst the dash, door panels and carpet were stitched in-house at Burnham's to work alongside the Italian Mountain Ash veneer work from Barry. An interesting feature of the interior is the Humber "Snipe" logo which blends into the armrest on the front doors. A small centre console was also made to keep the dash uncluttered of switchgear. On 7th February another key point was reached when the key was turned and the engine fired, breathing life into the creation for the first time.

March and April passed by with the car mostly in the paint shop before final assembly in the first couple of weeks of May.

Barry collected the car early on a Friday morning in May, directly from a 24 hour flight from Australia and drove all the way back to Suffolk at about 40 mph, but with a huge grin on his face. The next day he drove to Drayton Manor and debuted the car at Neil's Springnationals to widespread approval.

"From the first time of chatting to Paul until the day I collected the finished article was the one of the most satisfying and rewarding years of my life. The whole team worked together to create exactly the vision I had held floating in my head for nearly ten years and I now have a true representation of my rodding dreams. When inspiration or experience were needed they were there to support, but they never tried to create anything other than what I wanted. Many people, including my wife, who never understood what I was trying to achieve, now look at the final product and fall in love with its elegant simplicity of design, combined with huge physical presence. Even traditionalist Paul had to admit I was right all along!"

Since collecting the car from Burnham Autos, Barry has added a few extra touches by creating an engine cowl and induction tubes under the bonnet and a boot lining to match the interior. All that remains to be done is to finally get the LPG system working to reduce those fuel bills a little and fix the speedometer which constantly reads 130.

The Humber gets used regularly for rod-runs, including a trip to Antwerp for Stars On Wheels, but also gets plenty of outings with family and friends and is so in demand for weddings that Barry has set up a small business to do just that. It was also filmed recently for a feature on ITV Men & Motors' Used Car Roadshow.