“The jump jet is remarkable, even today the Americans cannot make it work,” the 70-year-old vacuum cleaner entrepreneur tells Saturday Extra.

His engineering campus in the rolling Wiltshire countryside in south west England is littered with design and engineering icons including a Mini that has been sawn in half to show its clever use of space.

“They belong to an era when Britain still had some confidence and could still make things,” says Dyson.

At lunchtime engineers queue for subsidised meals under a full-sized English Electric Lightning jet and stare longingly at an engine from the Concorde supersonic passenger liner. It is no coincidence that the motor in the new Dyson Supersonic hair dryer looks like a jet engine.

Outside they enthusiastically fire up the world’s first ever jet engine, created by Sir Frank Whittle and ignored and neglected for so long by British authorities. The lesson there is one of belief and perseverance when others cannot see the future you envisage.

James Dyson had a few years of that himself as he battled to get vacuum cleaner manufacturers to adopt his cyclone technology which did away with their lucrative line in replacement dust bags.

A break in Japan finally gave him the finance he needed to set up his own company, which now employees 12,000 people around the world including 300 in Australia. It is a market he loves.

“Our first export market was Australia,” he says. “The Australian market has been really good for us, it is a very wealthy market. There is an inventing spirit in Australia and a great interest in everything we do.

And Australians, through Dyson’s close links with Harvey Norman’s Katie Page and Gerry Harvey, have played a key role in developing his products.

“I met Katie and her husband Gerry many years ago and I thought that they were a wonderful retailing operation. They have been great partners to us.

“They have always been great friends and advisors to us because they just know how the public think and how to sell things. And that’s something you can never tell.”

Katie Page has shelves of Dyson products on offer at Harvey Norman’s new flagship store, which opens in Auburn today.

“Edison, Marconi, Dyson - that is how history will record the contribution of James Dyson,” she says.

“To me, he is the master. Master engineer, master designer and master inventor. What began as a working relationship back in the 90’s has become a steadfast friendship,” she says.

“James is just the most amazing man, even beyond his vast publicly acknowledged achievements. He is humble. It is a true testament to him, that he is still surrounded by so many of his original engineering and design team.”

The teacher’s son from Norfolk has not shied away from controversy. He has steadfastly argued that Brexit will mean closer ties and trade between the UK and Australia.

“I was deeply ashamed when we went into the European Common Market in 1972 less than 30 years after the war. The countries of the Commonwealth had gone through two world wars fighting by our side and we joined with Europe, I was really appalled at that.”

“The exciting thing for me about Brexit is that we can have free trade with the Commonwealth instead of Australian agriculture having such high import duty and Australian wine being taxed by Europe.

“We can also have immigration from Commonwealth countries. We have so much in common.”

Dyson says the Commonwealth had a much bigger slice of world trade than the European Union, which is not a single market at all. “For us, Europe also has a lot of different plugs,” he joked.

At such an exciting time he has no intention of retiring or handing over the reins of his company. He and son Jake spend their time with the engineers, brainstorming new ways of doing things.

They make decisions to green light ideas and prototypes on the spot. It is a move to wipe out bureaucracy that also encourages face to face meetings and eradicates email.

Dyson only ever answers six emails a day. In a culture where there is no fear of failure and engineers are trusted to do their best an email accountability trail is redundant.

“It is better to make the wrong decision early than the right decision too late,” he says.

At the heart of his success is a belief in his own ideas. “If you don’t look around you too much, if you take less notice of what people are doing and then try to do what you are doing and make it a different way and do it well, then people will be interested in what you are doing.”

He eschews market research because people can only tell you about what they know - they do not know the future until innovators like Dyson show it to them. “Sometimes,” he concedes. “You have to allow people to get used to a new idea.”

And the key to it all is “inducing a lack of fear of failure” in his team. It helps that they are young and brimming with innovation, ideas and confidence.

“I employ graduates and give them a lot of responsibility and they come at the job with a naive but professional approach. They are enquiring and intelligent and come up with a different way of doing things,” says Dyson.

As a young graduate he was handed a blow torch and told to design and build the Sea Truck, a kind of commercial landing craft for areas without ports, and when he did was then told to go and sell it.

“This idea of giving young people who have no history and experience, that philosophy, got into me at the beginning,” he says.

The average age in his company is 26.

“I think I am young as well and then I look in the mirror,” he laughs.

Dyson is now expanding his faith in young graduates with an onsite Dyson engineering university where undergraduates can learn on the job.

They will be led by the engineers who started with Dyson back in the early 1990s. “It is useful to have a few teachers around who can help this great influx of graduates every year,” says Dyson.

“Our oldest engineer is 82 and he has the enthusiasm of a young boy.”

Not unlike Dyson himself, who has just bought a disused World War II airfield, and brought in 300 engineers including one of the top men at Aston Martin to design and build the Dyson electric car using his lightweight motor, battery and airflow technology.

Designing and building a new car is a project fraught with problems. Particularly when you intend to have it on sale by 2021. Again for Dyson it is about core belief and a lack of fear.

“If you are not worrying about what people think you just get on with what you are doing,” he says.

“You do it because it is the right thing to do,” he says. “What is important is the integrity of your idea and making it the best possible idea you can.”

It is another change for a company that thrives on change. “You have got to change all the time. People don’t like that because it is uncomfortable but it is happening,” says Dyson.

“We have competitors who copy us so we have got to move ahead fast. We have thrived on change, it’s what we love and I find that very exciting.”

And the first customer for the new Dyson car will be bringing her battery powered vehicle to Australia.

Katie Page says: “James’ life’s work is far from complete. It is his work with battery power that will continue to change the way we live. I intend to be the first to buy his electric car. Stand by.”