At the end of 1997, Tyrrell sold his team and F1 entry to the new British American Racing venture – which begat Honda, which begat Brawn GP, which begat Mercedes-AMG, based today out of not one but two much larger sheds in Brackley and Brixworth.
The original one continued to be used for storage by its new owner, but the site is now ripe for housing redevelopment – which triggered the salvage operation.
Goodwood secured its planning permission back in 2021, and finally in January this year the relocation began. First the asbestos roof had to be removed and disposed of, before carpentry and timber-frame specialist Alistair Kerr began the deconstruction work with a five-man team.
So how did Kerr take apart the shed, keeping in mind that he would need to reconstruct it piece by piece at Goodwood? “We took lots of pictures and labelled every part,” he says. “We were quite lucky, because it was a prefab building originally, so it was designed to come apart and be put back together again. We were just very methodical about it.”
Transporting the pieces required further care, then Kerr and his team completed the reconstruction in around two weeks.
All is as it was, except for new window frames to replace the rotten originals, a non-hazardous roof and retro-style electricity sockets, sourced after much poring over of period photos by the Goodwood team.