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This one has come to us from the family of a friend, a man I first met over thirty years ago when we both kept full-size road engines at the same yard in Hampshire. He went on to have a career as a professional engineer and, in his spare time, was a fastidious restorer of full-sized steam engines as well as a prolific modeller.

Of the three 3 inch scale road engines that he built - a Fowler A7, Marshall steam roller and the McLaren - only the Fowler was ever steamed. The other two were largely completed although never commissioned - both are complete and turn over, although require gland packings, gauge seals and the majority of fasteners and fittings tightening down, the McLaren also requiring a grate along with attention to a leaky regulator and clack valve.

Of imposing size and proportions, the engine weighs in at a little over a third of a ton and is just over five feet long. Rarely modelled in any scale, we've previously had one 4 inch scale McLaren which sold way back in 2008, along with a part-built 3 inch scale engine.

The boiler is welded steel, with expanded tubes. It is well made, apparently by the same hand as the Marshall roller's boiler which proved sound on a twice working pressure hydraulic test. We suspect that the builder cut and prepared the plates and tubes himself, before having them welded together professionally, however the family could find no paperwork in his effects for either engine.

Whilst a leak on the simpling valve precluded any meaningful test, we would warranty the boiler as sound, capable of passing a twice working pressure test once that, along with various leaky fittings, has been attended to.