From our Windsor to the House of Windsor

A WESTERN Sydney family of petrol heads and a coach builder from the beachside suburb of Manly have made history — creating a golden, jewel-encrusted carriage that will carry the Queen through London.

The Diamond Jubilee State Coach took a decade for Jim Frecklington and his team to build and features astonishing relics and artefacts from more than 1000 years of history.

There are bits of Lord Nelson’s HMS Victory warship and a Bronze Age boat, some of the apple tree that generated the idea of the laws of gravity, a battle of Waterloo musket ball and a bolt from a Spitfire.

More than 50 people from around the world were involved in the project.

Among them was Terry Sainty, one of the famous Sydney drag-racing family, who created the spokes, rims and wheels in their old factory near Windsor.

“They are made from extremely strong and light aero-grade aluminium and use the technology we use for our drag racing,’’ Mr Sainty, 44, said yesterday.

“Working with Jim was amazing, he’s a very smart man.

“With Jim it’s all done just by talking. No plans or diagrams or drawings, he just went around the world looking at wheels.” Mr Sainty designed the spokes to angle outwards to throw mud, and horse manure, away from the coach.

“This is how it was done in old carriages before mudguards were used,’’ he said.

Mr Sainty is confident his wheels will handle a sedate journey through London. The same alloys helped the Sainty drag-racing team create Australia’s fastest car, which hit 479km/h over drag-racing’s standard quarter mile long strip.

Read the complete article: The Advertiser: From our Windsor to the House of Windsor: Western Sydney family’s carriage makes its debut in London carrying the Queen