18 September 2011 Last updated at 07:19 ET

Somerset engineer builds her own car for wedding day

Lt Ashton spent six years building the car for her wedding day

A woman who works as an engineer at RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset built her own car for her wedding day.

Lt Megan Ashton from Amesbury, Wiltshire, bought a Volkswagen Beetle for £200 which she rebuilt as a replica Porsche 356, valued at about £25,000.

The project took six years to complete and was inspired by her brother who also made his own wedding car.

She said: "I realised it was a replica of the car that was driven in Top Gun by Kelly McGillis - a perfect choice."

'A great moment'

She married Rob Ashton, a captain in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, on 13 August at the Sandhurst Royal Military Academy Memorial Chapel.

Lt Ashton, who works in the engineering team for the Lynx helicopter, said: "I wanted to drive the car myself, but I got slightly carried away and got a slightly bigger dress so I couldn't quite fit under the steering wheel.

"Dad drove me to the church and Rob drove us to the reception venue. We did swap over and I took my high heels off and drove the last 500 metres in my dress which was quite cool, it was really special, a great moment.

"On an old Beetle you can undo a number of bolts underneath the chassis and basically lift the body shell off.

"We had to strip the chassis down even further, take everything off it, so all we had left was the central spine with all the cables and pipes within it.

"It's probably valued at about £25,000 but to me it's priceless, it won't be going anywhere."