that time, the factory was busy just making the DB5 coupe, so David Brown made an arrangement with Harold Radford to make continue making DB5 shooting brakes to meet the demand. Radford was already experienced in building the not dissimilar Bentley Countryman shooting brakes. The conversion for the DB5 was extensive and affected the whole car from the windscreen backwards. The rear hatchback was a single piece hinged from the top and assisted by springs. The interior was cleverly designed to hold as much as luggage as possible. With the rear seat folded down, the car offered an uninterrupted load space of 1.75 metres by 1.05 metres and a volume of 1.1 cubic metres making it a practical and fast load lugger. As the mechanical and chassis specification of the car remained the same as when first built, the car was still claimed to reach 150mph and was marketed as ‘The world’s fastest dual-purpose vehicle’. Radford also claimed the Shooting Brake would be able to brake from 100mph to a standstill in six seconds. Each shooting brake began life as a completely finished saloon, priced at £4,412. The price of a finished shooting brake incurred an additional cost of £2,000 when ordered through Aston Martin. In some cases, customers also sent pre-registered cars to Radford for conversion. Only 12 DB5 shooting brakes were built (8 RHD and 4 LHD), all of which are believed to survive, making them the rarest DB5 variant. Following on from the DB5 Shooting Brake, Radford went on to build similar cars based on the DB6. Ford GT40 Prototype Radford was also involved with the original Ford GT40 project. After 1965, and a slow start to the GT40’s LeMans career, FIA rules and regulations were changed for the 1966 season. In order to qualify for the ’66 season Ford needed to create 50 homologation models of the GT40 within 12 consecutive months. Using the prototype Lola coupé with a Ford V8 engine and a Colotti gearbox as a basis, the Ford GT coupé was created. The cars were made and built in England by British craftsmen and mechanics in a factory on the Slough Trading Estate, to the West of London. This steel chassis/body unit of the prototype cars was made by Abbey Panels Ltd of Coventry and it arrived at Slough in a bare and unpainted form, where front and rear sub-frames were fitted for