"I was addicted to producing magazines"

Peter Filby's enthusiasm for Britain's thriving kit-car scene became a mini publishing empire that caught the mood of a motoring nation

- PAUL REGAN

It's neither the beautifully kept Aston Martin nor the faithful Cobra replica that first draws the eye as Peter Filby swings open his garage doors. It's the boxes. Uniform in height and stacked neatly across the full width of the back wall, this doesn't seem to be your usual garage fodder. "Those?" he smiles. "They're copies of Snakes Alive!, my latest book."

Even in retirement, Filby can't help but put print to paper. He slides out a hardcover compendium of Cobra replicas. It is specific in subject, covering all models built during the 1980s kit-car boom- or at least what the author describes as "best of breed".

Because, let's be honest, kit cars of the period weren't always known for their craftsmanship. The roots of the industry were well-meaning. home-assembled Specials of the 1950s and '60s, such as Fairthorpe and Elva, led to interesting low-volume (and some not-so-low) makers such as Lotus. But they also sprouted a rash of weird and often not-so-wonderful glassfibre shapes of dubious quality and, at best, acquired taste.

That is, at least, one way of looking at it. The counterargument is one of democratisation of sports cars; of swapping hard graft and a little imagination for the chance to drive something closer to fantasy than the rusted family saloon you sacrificed to achieve it. This intrigue was probably the fuel that ignited Peter's career.

'Probably' will be a feature of this story. As we sit in his kitchen, across a table filled with a lifetime of motoring books and magazines that bear his name, it's a struggle to piece together perfectly the patchwork of publications that make up his working life. Absolutely apparent after a cup of coffee in his convivial company, however, is that the particulars are not so important. What shines through is a single-minded determination to tell stories about a corner of our industry that he (mostly) loved.