A 56-year-old car, restored by a Kings Langley father and daughter team, has been named Classic Car of the Year.

After being voted 1950s Car of the Year about a month ago, “Napoleon”, a 1954 Jowett Jupiter SC, has also been recognised with the prestigious title at the 2010 NEC Classic Car Show.

Keith Clements 63, originally bought the car in 1979 as a wreck, with the intention of restoring it for his daughter Amy's 17th birthday.

But it wasn’t until July last year that Aspley Lock couple Amy Clements, then 30, and her partner Jack Moon, 27, decided to restore the Jupiter to its former glory.

Amy, Keith, Jack, and fellow car enthusiast Chris Spencer, started working on Napoleon every Saturday, and for a few hours during the week.

By March the team, who all have full-time jobs, were working on the car the best part of a week, often into the early hours of the morning, until its completion in May.

Amy Clements, said: “It's been a real labour of love.

“This time last year it was in thousands of bits and the body work was a wreck, we had to strip about 12 layers of paint and primer off - there was ivory, blue and green.”

Built in Bradford between 1950 and 1954, aluminium-bodied Jowett Jupiter sports cars are powered by a 60 to 62bhp Jowett-designed 1486cc flat four pushrod engine.

It reaches a top speed of about 85mph, accelerating 0 to 50 in 11.7 seconds.

Only 900 Jupiters were ever made and of these, 94 were of the ‘SC’ type which had a boot.

When the group found out that they had won both categories, they said they were absolutely “over the moon” and felt all their hard work had paid off.

Ms Clements added: "When we won, well what can I say, we were chuffed to bits.

“Dad and I were both grinning from ear-to-ear, Jack was over the moon, and when I phoned Chris to tell him the good news, his response was 'you're kidding me'.

"Even my mum burst into tears when she saw the car on the stand.

“We were shocked to have won as our competition was very stiff, but it’s the culmination of a lot of hard work, and a real testimony to how the story of Napoleon captured peoples' interest.

“I'm sure that some of the votes from readers of the Watford Observer made a difference.”