A feature in the Daily Telegraph where writer Mark Hales climbs behind the wheel of the Vanwall GPR V12, a brand new sports car that recreates a 1950s legend at http://connected.telegraph.co.uk

Every so often, a story comes along that you simply couldn't make up. Like the one about the new, fully road-legal, single-seat car that looks very much like a famous 1950s grand prix winner. More than that, it sports a badge made immortal by the marque that created it, and wears it with full approval from the trustees.

Classic style: the new Vanwall is road-legal

And it's a world-championship title-winning badge, no less, because the car you see here is officially a Vanwall and it looks like the one Stirling Moss drove in 1958. A real Formula One car for the road? Couldn't happen, could it?

Well, maybe not quite, but nearly… The story begins at a small farm industrial unit nestling among the trees on the outskirts of Peterborough, where you will find one Arthur Wolstenholme, late of the Ronart company.

Ronarts were simple, muscular sports cars built around a tube-frame chassis and Jaguar running gear, with rounded glass-fibre bodies and wheels covered by cycle wings in a style typical of 1950s specials. They made no pretence to sophistication, always had more power than grip and were generally hot and noisy.

They were fun to drive, though, and it was a good niche; since mere survival in the low-volume car business depends on a product that is nicely made and well sorted, Ronarts were clearly both, because Wolstenholme sold more than 100 between 1988 and 2003.

Then came the desire to move up-market, which led to the ill-fated Lightning GT. Although handsome, it moved away from the principles of simplicity and affordability, lost its investors at a critical point and foundered. Some 15 buyers had their deposits returned but Ronart had to cease trading.

Undeterred and clearly still driven, as such people need to be, Wolstenholme went back to the 1950s for his next inspiration, a single-seater in the style of that decade's grand prix cars, the last hurrah of the front-engined breed.

It wouldn't be that different mechanically from the Ronarts that he knew well how to build, but might wear a body akin to the Dino Ferrari or Maserati 250F Formula One cars - a shape that to my generation of schoolboys was what a real racing car looked like. As far as Wolstenholme knew, nobody had done it before and even if the niche would be more rarefied than usual, at least his business might rise from the ashes.

But he had to find a name. Ronart was no longer free (it hardly trips off the tongue anyway) and all the real grand prix marques that have won the constructor's title since the start of the modern era in 1950 were in the hands of people unlikely to make them available. You can't imagine McLaren or Williams allowing their names to appear on a low-volume car made in Peterborough. But after a little research, there emerged one possibility.

Back in the days when individuals drove companies, race enthusiast Tony Vandervell, boss of the bearing company that bore his name, had finally despaired of success with BRM's V16, or of beating "those bloody red cars" with customer Ferraris painted a different colour, and had commissioned his own grand prix contender. Thus, via expedience and frustration, was Vanwall born - the "Van" coming from Vandervell and "wall" from the Thinwall crankshaft bearings that his company had pioneered and had fast become an industry standard.

The Vanwall's chassis was designed by a hungry young Colin Chapman, who had yet to enter the grand prix arena with his own Lotus outfit, and the body was drawn by up-and-coming aerodynamicist Frank Costin, who used his special expertise to create something in the style of the time yet subtly different - more like a slimmed-down sports car.

The engine that powered it all was initially an amalgam of four Manx Norton racing motorcycle cylinders bolted to a common crankcase, but even with such unlikely ingredients assembled by relatively inexperienced hands, a trio of English drivers - Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans - helped Vanwall to the constructor's title in 1958, just two years after the car was born.

Vandervell had lived to defeat the reds and see his dream come true, but as the years rolled by the bearing business passed first to GKN and American giant Federal Mogul, then again to Dana, another American industrial megalith. Perhaps by an accident of accountancy, the Vanwall name went with the flow; it's difficult to believe that number-crunchers would have any idea of its significance. Maybe that's just as well because, having located the custodians, Wolstenholme decided that nothing could be lost by an approach.

And to his continued amazement, Dana's people said yes. The name could be applied to a new model, the only condition being that it must be used solely for cars. "They just seemed to like what I was proposing," says Wolstenholme, almost apologetically. "And they must have thought I'd do a good job…"

Even if the purist might be less than happy about the recreation, it does at least resemble the original, something that the attachment of a BRM logo to a Rover 25 conspicuously failed to achieve a few years ago. So much, then, for the resurrection of a famous marque, but what of the new-millennium Vanwall that wears its badge?

The first thing to note is that the body is not an exact copy of the grand prix car, although you'd need a picture of the original to say exactly why. The wire wheels are smaller in diameter and the tyres wider (the original tall and skinny size is simply not available in road-legal form), while the nose is lower - the original is pointier and the air intake smaller.

The new body is narrower because the fuel tanks are no longer in the flanks, but apart from a wheelbase four inches longer, the dimensions are almost identical and the signature fairing behind the driver's head, which Costin included for aerodynamic reasons, handily incorporates modern roll-over protection.

Dedicated observers might also pick out six exhaust stubs per side instead of the original's four on the left. Under the GPR V12's bonnet is an engine three times the size and with three times the number of cylinders, in the form of a 6.0-litre Jaguar V12 from a 1991 XJRS, complete with a row of downdraught Weber carburettors. This is mated to a Jaguar E-type gearbox (four-speed, all-synchromesh) operated by a neat remote gearshift. You can specify a V8 engine or a five/six-speed 'box if you prefer.

The suspension is borrowed from an XJ6 and the whole lot is clothed by a beautiful, aluminium-alloy body, its edges rolled round a piece of wire in traditional fashion. Created by Steve MacFarlane in Essex, this adds about £15,000 to the price, but lends an essential touch of class. A carbon-fibre body is also available.

The cockpit is ample and you sit in it rather than on it, which distinguished the car in 1957. Driving is therefore a hot and noisy experience but one that is definitely exciting and different, and, once you become used to the intimate sight of the wheels pattering up and down over bumps, not at all difficult or intimidating.

The suspension is very compliant, which allows the car to move about but keeps it comfortable and accessible, while the combination of six litres and about 360 horsepower in less than a ton is absolutely shattering - but only if you want it to be.

You can rumble along at urban speeds in first or second gear, then light up the rear wheels and bring on a V12 rasp to splinter the air simply by pressing the right-hand pedal. Or you can whisper past at tickover in top and avoid the tyre smoke but get to whatever illegal gait you might desire almost as quickly. Add to that the unprecedented attention the Vanwall creates on the motorway, in town and especially when parked, and potential owners should not be shy retiring types.

It's quite physical but easy to drive, nicely made, fast enough to be very exciting and nothing if not different. So £49,950 is either a bargain for a hand-made, aluminium-bodied, six-litre V12-powered sports car, or a lot of money for something with only one seat. Either way, would you really buy one? Maybe not, but then Wolstenholme doesn't expect to sell many. It was, he says, just something he had to do to be true to the name, and the first one had to be, well, as much like a Vanwall as possible.

The volume product, he believes, will be the forthcoming two-seat version, which in profile looks very similar but is stretched laterally to provide the extra accommodation. Two have already been sold (powered at the customer's request by Ferrari rather than Jaguar V12s - something that might have Vandervell turning in his grave) and these are already well advanced in the workshops.

So they're Ronarts in a different suit and by another name (and none the worse for that), except they are officially Vanwalls. As I left, I asked Arthur if, when he stood outside that Dana boardroom with its tennis-court-sized table lined with rows of blue-suited executives, he had ever expected them to make something so relevant to the history of British motorsport available to a little English company trying to recover from hard times.

He looked at the ground for a moment, then shook his head like a world-weary schoolteacher. "Never," he said. "And it still feels like a big responsibility to be custodian of something like this. I'm building Vanwalls. I almost can't believe it's happening."

For me, the Vanwall was a wonderfully eccentric enterprise that turned out to be much better in the metal than I had expected. As I said, some stories are easier to report than to invent. And the moral of this one? If you don't ask...

Vanwall GPR V12

Price/availability: from £49,950, subject to specifi cation. On sale now. Contact Vanwall Cars, tel 01773 332913, www.vanwallcars.com.

Engine/transmission: 6,000cc in-line V12 with single camshaft per bank and two valves per cylinder; approx 360bhp at 5,600rpm and 375lb ft of torque at 3,700rpm (5.3-litre V12 or V8 units also available). Four-speed manual gearbox (five- or six-speed units also available), rear-wheel drive.

Performance: top speed 160mph-plus, 0-60mph in 5.0sec, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions N/A.

We like: Appearance, unique status, performance, benign handling.

We don’t like: If you can’t accept the compromises of an open singleseater, don’t buy one.

Alternatives: There aren’t any. But for 1950s Lotus style with storming performance (and two seats), try the new Caterham CSR 200, from £28,500 (kit) and £31,000 (complete), or CSR 260 (£34,000 and £36,500)