Rare Uckfield-based car is a winner at Simply Japanese, Beaulieu

The Toyota SERA is an innovative, supermini-size coupe built between 1990 and 1995, and only 15,941 models were made. With its glassy canopy and dramatic gull wing doors, the SERA looked incredibly futuristic then - and it still does!

The name SERA is the future tense of the French verb "Etre" and means "will be", and was chosen by Toyota "to signify a dream-like car that takes us into the future". This was the first time that such a gull wing design had evber been seen on a mass-produced Japanese car, and it inspired Gordon Murray's development of the McLaren F1 Supercar.

Usually, the winning cars at Beaulieu are the brightest, newest, noisey-est and flashiest models from Japan, so it is really amazing that this year, the People's Vote included a 33 year-old car. But the unique gull wing doors attracted a huge amount of interest and undoubtedly played a part in attracting a winning vote.

This winning car is almost totally unmodified, and is an outstanding example of an original SERA. It has only 53,000 miles on the clock, and is owned by Sarah Hill of Uckfield. This is the third SERA that she has owned over the space of 25 years, and she says it will be her last! This is Sarah's "daily drive" and she says that almost every time she parks for example in Tesco's car park, someone will come over and say: "I've never seen one of those before". Sarah takes her car to various local shows where it also attracts a great deal of attention, and it has considently won "Best Standard Car" and "Best Original" at the annual gathering of SERAS, which usually take place in the Midlands so that as many SERAS as possible can attend. Sadly, the numbers are becoming fewer every year.

It is becoming a very rare car with, it is thought, only 60 examples in the entire United Kingdom. However, Sarah's husband recently managed to find another, so this household now owns His and Her models.