2018: A year in review

As 2018 draws to a close, we can happily look back and celebrate what has been another busy year at DK Engineering. For our Christmas card this year, we have once again commissioned an original piece by longstanding friend, Dexter Brown. This year turning his palette to #80742, the most successful F40 ever built; a car sourced, sold, restored and race prepared by ourselves during the last 18 months.

Over the course of five months earlier this year, we restored the ex-Taisan F40 to its original MonteShell livery. Colours in which, during its debut championship, it won 9 out of 10 races and clinched the Italian Supercar GT championship - it was also the only F40 ever to win a championship. Post restoration it ran faultlessly at its shakedown at the RedBull Ring in May and later went on to race at the Silverstone Classic.

DK Engineering was privileged to be able to extensively support the Design Museum in organising Ferrari: Under the Skin, an exhibition celebrating Ferrari's 70th anniversary. We helped arrange for a number of historically significant Ferrari's to be involved, Gianni Agnelli's Testarossa Spyder, the prototype 250 PF Cabriolet and the factory Daytona Competizione and the 250 LWB rolling chassis exhibit to name but a few.

An ever-increasing number of events in the motorsport calendar saw the team and cars travel to a host of events all over the world. April saw Scuderia Bear re-enter Tour Auto in the GT40 for a 5 day, multi-thousand kilometre road race through France. Unfortunately, mechanical issues on the last day meant that a win two years running was off the cards. We'll be back next year though!

We also proudly sponsored and competed in the Pre63-GT championship; a three round cup starting at Donington, running thru Silverstone and concluding in the Algarve. After 7 years of trying and countless podiums, James took gold in the final race of the season in the Jaguar E-Type.

Attending major race meetings this year with a broad selection of cars, we have competed, piloted and supported clients throughout. Attendance was secured at both Goodwood circuit events (with a win with the Porsche 904 at the Members Meeting) Silverstone Classic, Spa Classic, Le Mans Classic, Monterey Historic, Modena Cento Ore and many others.

Away from the racetrack, we also took several cars to the concours lawn of Salon Privé, once again hosted at Blenheim Palace. After a 36 month restoration, Ferrari 250 LM #6105 was completed just in time and brought home the People's Choice and Duke's Choice awards.

The sales team have had another strong year contradicting the continued apparent uncertainty around Brexit. Rounding up another year, we have once more re-homed several historically significant, high-profile cars. Some of these have been off-market sales including but not limited to; a McLaren F1 road car, one of just two examples that left the factory in white, as well as one of the final Ferrari F40 prototypes built. On top of these, we have also sold Ferrari #0098, an extensively raced, factory restored, 212 Export. Other highlights include four Ferrari 275s, two Ferrari Enzos, three Ferrari F50s and for the model we are possibly known best for, the F40, nine other examples of such. If you're looking for something specific, or would just like to have a chat, do get in touch and we would be delighted to assist you.

2018 also saw the completion of our much-needed storage facility expansion. We added a new full-size mezzanine and a giant car lift. As a result we have nearly doubled our capacity meaning that DK have almost 300 cars in our care at any one time ; All whilst retaining the security, discretion and convenience that you have come to expect from us at DK. We welcome Adam Price on the storage team to assist with the growing number of cars in our facility.

As the company continues to grow, we have welcomed new members once more to the DK family. Simon Steele is the new face in charge of the workshop. Simon joins us with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the motoring sector having been a long term Prodrive employee. He is on hand to ensure servicing your car runs as smoothly as you would expect, whether you are dropping a car off personally, or co-ordinating logistics from the other side of the world. Davi Braga joined us as a multi-lingual engineer to form our new Technical department. Luke Gilbertson has joined our sales department with an extensive social media and photography background and is working alongside the existing team with administration, motorsports photography and event summaries. Dk also continues to train in house a number of apprentices as a number of our existing younger employees progress up the ladder.

With all of this and much, much more; auctions, race events and socials aplenty, it has made for quite the busy year once more. We can only reflect on this year with positive thoughts. From everyone here at DK Engineering, we wish you the very best Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year.

You may find our full Christmas brochure, online here