I had no idea they were still remotely in business. So I looked for a website, and sure enough, there they were. Claiming to be very much in business with a variety of models... and, they say rather proudly, "No dealers. Please contact the factory directly." Judging by the terrible pictures and non-existent graphics of the website here's my mind's eye image of the "factory" when you call up for information: --------------------------- Scene: a low, wooden building just off the main taxi way at a former Allied bomber base in the Midlands. Part of the factory building has collapsed due to age, rot, inattention, lack of funds. One of the main doors is slightly ajar. We peer into the gloom, broken only partly by an occasional fluorescent overhead light and shafts of weak English afternoon sun coming through dirty windows (or perhaps holes in the roof) and glinting on polished chrome and appropriately conservative dark green and dark blue body paint. A few cars in various states of completion can be seen in the recesses of the shop, some draped with dust sheets. A steady hammering sound accompanies occasional whirr of machinery and screech of metal on metal. The hammering is produced by an aged worker steadily forming sheet steel into fenders and other body parts using the time honored skills and trained eye of the panel beater. Across the way, an equally aged worker painstakingly uses a World War I drill press to bore individual cylinders into a massive billet of steel. Suddenly the work rythmn is broken by the insistent ringing of a telephone somewhere in the building. The hammering pauses. The whirring machines halt. Phone rings. Phone rings. Phone rings. "Alf! That might be the telephone don't you think?" Phone rings. "Aye. Might be indeed." Phone rings. "Where's the young 'un? He's supposed to handle the telephone." Phone rings. "Aye. That be true. But you sent him to the iron mongers an hour ago to fetch some more #18 bolts and he hasna coom back." Phone rings. "Wonder who'd be callin' this time o day..." Phone rings. "Oh, aye. Was woonderin' 't same thing." Phone rings. "Where's that dratted boy? Can't stand that racket." Phone rings. Hammering resumes. Whirring machines start up anew. --------------------------- Cheers, Lewis D. |
