No car that rolled off the production line at Cowley looked quite like this one.

But then, workers at Morris Motors dealt only with properly-made car parts, not a pile of old junk. Pupils at Peers School at Littlemore, Oxford, had spent weeks scouring their parents' sheds, garages and attics for any scrap metal they could find.

No doubt there was plenty to be acquired from scrap metal merchants - and even in the countryside, if fly-tipping was as bad then as it is now. The youngsters had been set a challenge - produce an exhibit for a show of work by school pupils at the Institute of Education in Norham Gardens, North Oxford.

The contestants from Peers - and many other schools in Oxfordshire - had just a few months before the month-long exhibition opened on November 8, 1971.

At Peers, the team chosen for the project spent the first few weeks in the art room drawing up a prototype. When that was completed, the pupils then set about finding the material with which to construct the contraption.

Soon it began to take shape, and as they put the finishing touches to their work of art, Oxford Mail photographer Athar Chaudhry arrived to record the event for posterity. The Mail story was headlined It's the scrap metal special!' The pupils pictured above are, left to right, Stephen Washington, Martin Weitz, Barry Mazey and Leslie Valentine. Their teacher, Andree Porter, is on the right.

What we don't know is whether they won any prizes for their jalopy. Can anyone remember?