Rather like today’s superstar footballers and musicians – so famous they’re known only by their first names – the most successful and celebrated GT cars competing in the UK in the late 1950s and early ’60s tended to be known not by their model names, but by their registration plates.

If you’re schooled in that golden era, many spring to mind. Essex Racing’s glorious Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato duo of ‘1 VEV’ and ‘2 VEV’ are fine examples. As are the brilliant ‘BUY 1’ and ‘OWN 1’ plates sported by assorted competition Jaguars fielded by racer (and Jaguar dealer) John Coombs. However, when it comes to evocative registration plates few carry more mystique and kudos than ‘CUT 7’.

Associated with not one, but three successive – and successful – competition E-types, the CUT 7s were built to specifications that strayed from those of the factory built cars. Like all racing cars they were developed and evolved to generate more pace through performance enhancements and weight savings, but the CUT 7s also had panache and charisma that set them apart. The registration number and striking colour scheme played their part, but the cult of the CUT 7 cars was as much to do with the fascinating man who built and raced them. That man was Elmer Richard ‘Dick’ Protheroe.