How One Man Built an F1 Car at Home

TL;DR

Kevin Thomas, a UK electrician, spent a decade and ~£150,000 rebuilding a crashed 2014 Caterham F1 tub into a driveable car.

Key Points

• 1.The car started as Marcus Ericsson's crash wreck bought for under £5,000. Kevin won the poorly-listed, heavily damaged Caterham monoque from a 2015 bankruptcy auction after a 2-hour bidding war, getting a 9-month-old F1 tub at a fraction of its value.
• 2.Renault quoted €2.4 million per quarter just to rent the original engine. Red Bull matched that price for the gearbox, making the authentic powertrain cost €5 million per quarter — so Kevin substituted a Formula Renault engine instead.
• 3.The steering wheel was the single most expensive individual part at £10,000. Only three were ever made; Kevin tracked the one in Australia by pestering an auctioneer until he revealed the seller's identity.
• 4.Missing parts were sourced globally over nearly a decade. The nose was found in a CEO's Las Vegas office, while wings were borrowed from Williams cars and adapted with custom brackets and 3D-printed steel components to fit the non-original gearbox.
• 5.John Dani Racing provided the specialist knowledge to cross the finish line. The car arrived at their workshop incomplete — missing the critical final 10% — requiring full wiring loom construction, electronics integration, and mechanical commissioning before it could run.
• 6.Kevin first drove the car 10 yards in late 2024, then tested it on a Suffolk airfield at around 80–100 km/h. Total build cost was approximately £150,000–£200,000 over a decade, versus an $800,000–$1.1M market price for a comparable ready-to-drive F1 car; he plans his first proper track day in 2026.