I had the chance to chat to various other owners at the 50th Year gathering at Donington Park a couple of weeks ago. There are several accessories that seem popular, particularly the half-hood and the draught reducer.

The half-hood is definately something that will need to go on the Christmas List but the draft reducer was something that I thought I could make myself using more of the left-over bits from the build (in case you are wondering, the draft reducer goes behind the driver to reduce the amount of air, and spray, that comes in from behind).

The commercial product hooks around the headrests and stretches a piece of netting between them. As well as being a significant cost item, I thought this would look a bit strange fixed to my tan-coloured headrests. So can I make my own?

To cut a long story short, I have made my own out of some aluminium bar and rod (from Screwfix) and some insect netting (from Amazon). I am not sure if I have the best type of netting – I am trying to balance visual transparency (so I can see behind me) against impermeabilityto air and water (so I keep warm and dry).

The whole thing is retained by poppers at the bottom and some velco along the sides. All up, it cost me about £25 to make.

And having tried it on a longish motorway drive, I can vouch for how useful it is. As well as being less of a breeze around my neck (literally a pain in the neck after a while), the reduction in draughts means that my noise-cancelling earbuds work better – there is less turbulance picked up by the cancelling microphone.

Update

I have needed to make some changes to the draught excluder because it is starting to pull away from the horizontal fixings as shown below. So I have remade it with some extra flat bar to strenghten the side fixings.