Another great musical evening

In late July we held another enjoyable musical night, this time the theme was "The Beatles", so some classic 60s & 70s hits were trotted out and performed by Margaret (organ), Michele (keyboard) and myself (keyboard). That's us above, from left to right.

Many thanks go to Margaret's helpers on the night, Venette, Graham and Ben, and to all 20+ guests who sang and laughed, and to the wonderful Gina, whose sponge-cake disappeared within a few seconds of it appearing on the table!!

We are now looking forward to the ABBA night next year but before that we will have another Christmas repertoire to practise.

Learning to play the piano.....properly!

For some years I've been able to play an electronic keyboard by ear and to use the automatic accompaniment, but I've never been able to read music or to play left-hand chords.

This all started to change in February of this year, when I commenced piano lessons with Michele Saunders Music Studio, here in Yamba. In fact, the studio is literally 100 metres from our front gate. How good is that?!

I have a Yamaha E443 electronic keyboard which has lots of bells and whistles but which, at the touch of a button, reverts to what is effectively a 61-key piano.

Lessons are half-an-hour per week and I am now coming up to my 30th. lesson. That's 15 hours of tuition in total over the past eight months and I am enjoying every second of the experience.

I never had the time to do this whilst I was working and helping to raise two children but now, in retirement, I have all the time in the world.

I practice at least an hour a day....not necessarily all in one go; some days I'll have a half-hour session, other days I'll be sitting at the keyboard for a couple of hours.

Last Saturday night I had my first "public" performance - at the home of a very dear friend (Margaret) who plays the organ beautifully and who hosted an evening of light classical music for about twenty or so friends.
There were four musicians - Michele (on guitar...her expertise is boundless), Margaret on her electronic organ, myself on my Yamaha keyboard and a gentleman by the name of Peter who plays a Kawai electronic piano (88 keys). Peter and his wife Claire were visiting for a week...and the stay included  several music sessions with Michele.

Peter is blind, is 83 and Michele is his music teacher.....his remote music teacher, because he lives north of Brisbane and Michele coaches him via the internet.
Yes, that's correct........and we believe it is a unique arrangement.

Here is a photo of three of us....Michele, Margaret and myself...........

 And another which includes Peter...........

I couldn't live happily without music.....and to be able to learn to read and play it from such a lovely and encouraging teacher as Michele is one of life's bonuses.

Nikon D3100 - put to the test today!

As mentioned in the previous post (last night), I had received the "new" second-hand camera but with daylight gone could do nothing more than take a quick shot under incandescent light and then read some details on the use and operation of the device.

But today, armed with an almost-cloudless sky and a strong nor-westerly, I ventured down to the harbour & marina and took about a dozen shots, with some samples shown below.

Click on the image for a larger version.

All photos were taken using the full Auto mode, where shutter-speed, aperture and focus is all controlled by the whizzgiggery inside the camera.
ISO setting was 100 and the image quality set at "JPEG Fine" and the size at "Large".

This is just so easy to use and I love being able to use the eyepiece to shoot and yet have the detailed info available on the rear screen.

Here are another few:-

That big structure is some sort of platformy thing which they take out into the river estuary and those tall posts are lowered down onto the bed and the platform is stabilised. I think it's something to do with the new sewerage line that is going under the river bed.

Here are the lighthouses and these photos compare more than favourably in colour and sharpness with similar shots I took in 2014 with the Panasonic Lumix.

A very nice camera and with a 14-megapixel resolution it is certainly able to meet my expectations and requirements for the foreseeable future.

And it is SO easy to use....or have I already mentioned that?! :)

New camera - Nikon D3100 - first photograph

A "quick & dirty", as the camera arrived today and I didn't get home until nearly dark so have spent an hour or so browsing the manual (PDF) and becoming familiar with the functions and information display (rear screen).

After inserting an SD card (SDHC 16Gb, which holds about 3000 images in "Fine, Large" JPG format or about half that in RAW format) I placed it in Auto mode, made sure the flash was off, aimed it at the far wall of the living room and pressed the shutter button.

Below is the result......no editing and the only light that of the lamp on the shelf unit. Click for larger size.

Tomorrow I'll try it out properly but so far, so very good. :)

Digitising LPs and Cassettes

All the images will enlarge when clicked.

 

People of my age were raised on recorded music that was available in two mediums (or 'media', if you are pedantic!): vinyl records and the later cassette tapes.

When CDs came into vogue (circa 1983 here in Australia) the three formats ran side-by side for some years until first vinyl records (45s and LPs) were phased out then, much more recently, the cassette tape disappeared.

So the population gradually changed over to CDs, building up a new library but in the meantime the LPs were rarely played and ended up gathering dust in the corner of the living room and the stereo-system made way for a new system that featured a CD player in place of the turn-table.

Roll the clock forward to the 21st. century and the evolution of computer technology and we now have a situation where those old recordings - vinyl and cassettes - can be played, recorded, converted into digital format and more than 2000 individual songs stored in such a way that they can be carried in a shirt pocket in the form of an eight-gigabyte USB stick.

Over the past few months I've been doing exactly that for people who have dusty LPs and cassettes that have not been played for years.

Those people are now able to listen once again to the favourite music from their younger years and can do so in the home, in the car, when travelling on public transport or when out-and-about cycling, walking, hiking, climbing mountains or jumping off cliffs!

Many folk have asked me how this process is carried out, so I thought I'd give a thumbnail description as follows below.

Firstly, it's necessary to play the record (or cassette) and record the tracks whilst it is playing.

One minute of playing time equates to exactly one minute of recording time; there is no shortcut.

So the record is popped onto the turntable (or the cassette into a special USB-output cassette player).

I prefer to use a Dual 1229 turntable from the 1970s, which had a very good reputation for quality output and accurate speed and mine is fitted with the type of Shure cartridge and stylus recommended by the manufacturer back in the day.

I use the Dual if I am planning on doing something else whilst the record is playing because I can walk away and leave it, knowing that it will shut off (and the recording software on the computer will do likewise) when the record has finished playing.

The output of the turntable is connected to that little black box in the corner......

This device takes the analog signal coming from the record and passes it in digital format to the software used on the computer via a USB outlet in the NAD and a corresponding port on the PC.

At the same time I also take a feed out of the NAD device to the stereo amplifier seen in the first photograph, in this case a lovely 1970s Pioneer SX-750 which has given me excellent service for the past decade.

I don't need to do this but sometimes I just play a record for the sake of listening to a record, so it's easy to have a permanent connection to the stereo system

If I don't have anything else to do whilst a record is being digitised and if I'm happy to pick up the arm when the record comes to the end, I may use the Pro-Ject Genie turntable seen below............

This is a manual unit, where the arm is picked up and placed on the record and then manually removed when the record comes to the end of the last track, and features the recommended Ortofon cartridge and stylus.

Irrespective of which turntable is used, once a side has been played and recorded the LP is flipped over and the same procedure gets underway for the second side.

This technique also applies to cassettes.

The software program (Vinyl Studio) displays details about the record/cassette, which are input by the user.

 

Once recording is finished the saved digital file is taken into another program (Audacity) for editing.

Many records have accumulated dust and scratches over the years which result in "pops and clicks" being evident in the playback.

With an editing suite it is surprising how many of these extraneous noises can be removed without otherwise affecting the quality of the recording.

The editing program displays the recording as a linear graph........

The start of the record is at the extreme left-hand side, the long "lumps" are the tracks (in this example there are six) and the short, narrow bits are the transitions between one track and the next on the record.

This example also shows that the record (Paul Mauriat's "Mauriat Magic") was in stereo - the top trace is the left channel and the bottom trace is the right channel.

If you look closely you may also see several spikes - single straight lines - which project from the tracks.

These are sharp noises most often due to damage and or dirt in the track and are usually capable of being removed.

I will run the recorded file through a filter, selectable in the software, to remove the noises above a certain level.

Once filtered I then break the recording into its separate tracks, naming each one exactly as they are named on the LP (or cassette), and save them as individual MP3 files.

Then the last step is ready to place in operation and that is burning a CD, for which yet another computer program (Sonic) is used..............

This allows the CD to be created as either a conventional audio CD or one which is played in a computer.

The edited files are taken into the program, a CD placed into the CD drive and ten minutes later out comes a modern recording of an LP last played 30 years ago.

If the owner prefers to have the files stored on a USB stick rather than burned to a CD then the final step is much faster as it then just becomes a simple matter of copying the files across to the stick - in essence, just another minute or so.

To digitise an LP (or cassette) from go to whoa can take around an hour, sometimes longer if there are more than six tracks per side (or more than 30 minutes per side for a cassette).

It's an interest that I enjoy doing; it's very rewarding seeing the smiles when people know that they can once again listen to their favourite recordings.

And it keeps me off the streets.

Tiger Feet and Kitchen Stools

Since living on the far-north coast for over nine months (moved last May from Canberra) I have worn little other than shorts/swimmers, Hawaiian shirts and, on my feet, Birkenstock sandals.

The climate has had its effect; all my life I've tanned easily, turning nut-brown in summer as a child. Back in those days summertime was spent in shorts and little else...not even a top.
So I had to have a laugh when I noticed my feet the other day......no, they aren't dirty stripes but suntan through the gaps between the straps on the Birkies.

Ugly feet, but nice sandals.
I can recommend them for comfort, support and, of course, striped tanning!

The other item in this update relates to the two wooden stools that my wife made for our breakfast bar.

She did all the work, using the power tool equipment available at the Men's (and Women's) Shed located at Townsend, near Maclean.
Timber is (I think) Meranti and all the joints were doweled and glued and the timbers stained and varnished.
The corduroy seat-pads were done by a professional upholsterer using materials supplied by my wife.
Very comfortable items and beautifully made.

Restoring a 48-year old car

Back in the 1960s - say, between 1964 and 1967 - I was into slot-cars and would spend what I could on the hobby from my lowly wage as an apprentice electrician.

In those days it was not unusual for we enthusiasts to yearn for what was considered the ultimate slot-car kit - that made by the L.M.Cox Manufacturing Company, of Santa Ana, California.
Their kits were beautifully engineered and went like the clappers straight out of the box - nicely balanced and handling sweetly.
But what made Cox kits unique was their cast magnesium ("mag") chassis and wheels and it was these components, and the general overall quality of the kits, which went a long way towards making Cox slot-cars the most expensive of all.
I can't remember the exact price that we paid for these in Australia back then but it certainly took several month's pay for me to save up what little disposable income I had in order to buy a Cox kit.

Over the past four decades Cox kits and slot-car components have reached amazing values, with collectors (probably old slot-car enthusiasts!) paying ridiculous sums.
Only very recently an unassembled, complete NOS (new, old stock) kit sold for an astounding $3,000+ on Ebay. This is for something which, back in 1966, most likely retailed at around $25.

A couple of years ago I had a desire to buy and restore one of the slot-car models (a Monogram 1/24 Lotus 38) which I bought and ran back around 1966/67 and I picked it up on Ebay for about $150. Following rebuilding, re-painting and adding new decals, that model has more than likely doubled in value. NOS kits, unassembled, are going for many times that amount.

More recently I decided to bid on a Cox 1/24 Chaparral kit, issued in 1966.

It was not an NOS kit, but came with all it's bit 'n' pieces, had never been assembled and included the original documentation and box.
So I was pleased to see that I was the successful bidder and the parcel arrived from the USA a fortnight ago.

Since receiving it I have undertaken a cleanup of the magnesium components.
When originally made these castings were coated with a protective lacquer as soon as they came out of the mould but over time the lacquer deteriorates and slight corrosion and discolouration of the magnesium takes place; in many cases the magnesium takes on a very crusty and almost black appearance.

Some restorers have the mag bits powder-blasted and then immediately re-lacquer them.
That's probably the most effective method of regaining the original appearance but others look at the end result and consider that it is an over-restoration, as the patina added by time is completely removed.
Others, like myself, resort to other methods (usually cheaper!) and in my case I experimented, finally opting for a soup of vinegar and lemon juice (i.e., acetic & citric acid), finishing off with a sound scrubbing using an electric toothbrush and a paste of Gumption.
Bearing in mind that these bits were pretty blackened and somewhat crusty when I received them, here is the end result of the cleanup:-

The next phase is the assembly and painting of the body.

As it is unmolested and original I should have a straight-forward job.
Stay tuned!

After 6 Months of Retirement.........

I couldn't believe it when I looked at the calendar a couple of days ago and realised that in another week or so's time I will have been out of the workforce for six months.

The time has flown and the reason is that I am one of those very fortunate people who have a multitude of interests and hobbies - so many that I don't have the time to subscribe to them all.
Not for one minute have I been bored and the days just seem to flow from one into the next so fast that I sometimes have trouble keeping up.

My radio program on the local community FM radio station (Valley FM 89.5) occupies six hours each week and that isn't including the time I spend researching and preparing music and associated "stuff" for each broadcast.

A couple of days each week is spent in the yard and garden, carrying out the normal maintenance as well as a few projects that have been undertaken during this past summer.
The first was the creation of an enclosure for my wife's three Chinese Silkie chooks.
A pre-fab coop was bought, in "flat-pack" format, and when it arrived from Brisbane I assembled it.
Then I built a picket fence & gate between the end of one side of the garage and the back fence (seen in the photo below), which was painted after completion.

The other major job was the demolition and filling-in of the fishpond, which had been a feature of the garden in the backyard for many years but which had just become a maintenance chore, particularly the surrounding garden. It also hindered the access to the Photinea hedge for trimming.

So the pond went and was filled in with rubble and then two trailer-loads of crushed blue metal and is now in the last stage of work, with paving slabs having been laid (the photo below shows the preparatory work for the slab base).

I am just needing to get a load of garden soil to surround the paved area, which will then be home to the barbecue. 

During the very hot weather that we experienced here in Canberra over January I hibernated into the cool of the air-conditioning and continued - in a somewhat random manner - working on my life's story that I have been writing for the past few months.
This continues to be an interesting project but one that I only do when the mood strikes me rather than as a regular exercise on a fixed itinerary.

I have coffee with old workmates on a regular basis - catching up and keeping in touch.
One such friendship goes back to 1998, when I worked for a company associated with the production and publishing of digital information for the legal profession.

I've joined the Canberra branch of the Australian Railway Historical Society and in the cooler months I want to become involved with helping them out in a voluntary capacity.
Before moving to Canberra in 1984 I had joined the Zig-Zag Railway near Lithgow but never had a chance to become involved as we upped roots and moved down here.
I have always maintained an interest in all things train-related, so am looking forward to helping out when I can.

Then there is my return to painting figurines, which was a prime hobby way back in the late 1970s - early-1980s.
I have had a resurgence of interest but, like my memoirs, only do so when the mood strikes rather than as a regular commitment.
If you have to do something to a timetable then it doesn't remain a pleasure, it becomes a chore and one might as well be back in the regular workforce, having to work for a living!

To all the above I can add reading, computing (browsing, emailing, playing simulations, researching music tracks), catching up with the occasional rented DVD movie, letter-writing (on my 1970s IBM Selectric typewriter) and domestic chores and each day is full, from around six-thirty AM until I conk out around eleven PM.

How did I ever find the time for even half of these activities when I was working?!!

Lee Child sells out to the movie industry.

For many years one of my favourite authors has been Lee Child; his many novels featuring the character Jack Reacher have always been very enjoyable - as many millions of other readers have discovered.

One of the greatest things about reading is that we each establish a picture in our minds of the characters in a work of fiction and, when the central character is defined over time as to his/her size, weight, features, manner and so forth we each imagine exactly what that character is like.
Each of us has our own "picture" of that make-believe person.

I had long admired Child for not selling out to the movie industry and looked forward to the next Jack Reacher adventure with eagerness.

Not any more.
Lee Child has betrayed my imagination. He has sold out and I am contemptuous of him for doing so.
It's not as if he needs the money - he's certainly not poverty-stricken.

I could not believe it when I heard that (a) a "Jack Reacher" movie is being released and (b) Tom Cruise has been cast as the titular character!
TOM CRUISE?!!!

I never had a mental image of any particular actor as Jack Reacher - none at all. But if I had then Tom Cruise would not have even made the initial list, let alone a final interview.
Why?
Well, here is a summation of Reacher's physical attributes as gleaned from the various stories (courtesy Wikipedia):-

• Reacher is 6' 5" tall (1.96m) with a 50-inch chest, and weighing between 210 and 250 pounds (100–115 kg). He has ice-blue eyes and dirty blond hair. He has very little body fat and his muscular physique is completely natural (he reveals in Persuader he has never been an exercise enthusiast). He is exceptionally strong but is not a good runner.

Tom Cruise is 5'-7".
He does not have a 50" chest and certainly doesn't weigh between 210 and 250 pounds.
Jack Reacher is NOT Tom Cruise.

But now, when you Google "Jack Reacher" or "Lee Child", the majority of the images which appear are of Tom Cruise.

I will never be able to read a Jack Reacher novel again without seeing Cruise in my mind's eye and that is not only disheartening but also ridiculous.

No thanks to you, Mr. Child.

Returning to broadcasting

UPDATE 14-October-2012
On-air sessions: Mondays 0900 - 1200 and Fridays 1400 - 1700

Back between December 2002 and January 2006 I had a two-hour radio show with local Community Radio station Valley FM 89.5.
The show centred on music from the 1960s, although the edges were fuzzy and included stuff from the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s. "Easy Listening" music also formed a part, as did old BBC radio shows such as "Hancock's Half-hour", "Round The Horne", "Take It From Here" and "The Goon Show".

I received a lot of enjoyment from doing my thing and I know, from what feedback I had, that others also enjoyed hearing the type of music that we listened to every day as teenagers and young adults back in the 1960s.

In 2006 I re-entered the conventional "nine-to-five" workforce and dropped the show which at that time was being aired between 3:00 and 5:00 PM.

Just recently I retired after 48 years as a full-time employee and had the opportunity and desire to return to Valley FM and resurrect what I was presenting six years ago.
With over 200 LPs and a similar number of CDs, the contents of many of which I have converted to MP3s, the resources are capable of providing "Baby Boomer" material for some time to come, and that is the name I've chosen for this current foray into community radio.

We were very fortunate to have been born in what became known as the "Baby-Boom" period, the era usually considered to be between 1943 and 1960, coined by author Landon Jones in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation.
This is an era in which music (amongst other things like fashions and social mores) changed dramatically, in both who was creating it and who was listening to it.
And it was sparked by the invention and mass production of a tiny electronic device - the transistor.

Until radios became portable - and that was only possible with the introduction of transistors, printed circuit boards and small batteries - music was heard on large mantle or console radios or played on gramophones/radiograms - furniture pieces - utilising large 78 rpm bakelite records.
So it was the adults who were not only the producers of popular music (large bands and orchestras with vocalists) but also the buyers of the records and the devices on which they were played.

The transistor changed all that because music became portable (and cheaper) at the same time as younger performers started doing their thing. They go hand-in-hand.
With music now being targeted at the younger generation, who could now listen to it on their transistor radios and play the new smaller and lighter 45rpm records on their portable record players, the Baby-Boomers determined the future of the music industry.
Once a young man by the name of Bill Haley came up with "Shake, Rattle & Roll" (1954) and then "Rock Around The Clock" (1955), popular music and radio became a whole new ball game and our parents coined the term "generation gap"!

We Baby-Boomers can feel very proud of our status.
We have had a profound effect on music and what started over 50 years ago is the basis for popular music today. Wonderful songs and arrangements were composed and written back in those fabulous 1960s and they continue to provide pleasure to our generation.
I like to think that when I am in a nursing home, instead of singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", we will be having sing-songs which include "It's Been A Hard Day's Night"!

My new show - now dubbed "The Baby-Boomer Show" - commenced yesterday, going to air between 9:00 and 12:00 midday, which will be the timeslot until the end of the month, when it will probably start an hour or so later.
I will update this information when that occurs.

Internet streaming is currently being tested by the station management.
Once it becomes established then no matter where you are located, if interested you will be able to listen to the programmes on your home or laptop computer via the internet - both of which, incidentally, were invented by baby-boomers.

A Giant Leap into Retro-technology!

(All images enlarge to full size when clicked)

One of the technical marvels of the 1960s, all of the 1970s and most of the 1980s was the IBM Selectric typewriter, with its innovative "golfball" font element which travelled across the paper, instead of the traditional method of all typewriters up to that point, where the paper travelled past the point struck by the type levers.

The office out of which I worked in Sydney between 1977 and 1984 was equipped with these machines; every typist had one on her desk and the chatter of typewriters was part of the normal background ambient noise of our office, and zillions of others worldwide.

Quite recently I became injected with a dose of nostalgia whilst watching several episodes of "Mad Men", in which IBM Selectric's are quite conspicuous in the office scenes.
So after several attempts I managed to find someone in Australia who is an ex-IBM typewriter technician and who very kindly offered to refurbish one in his collection and sell it to me.

The opening photo (above) is the machine - an IBM Selectric II circa 1976 - as it appeared just a few days ago, prior to its disassembly.
(This machine was assembled right here in Australia, at the IBM plant that was established in 1976 at Wangaratta, Victoria).

The above photo was taken just today and shows the partially-stripped Selectric removed from its housing.
I never realised just how complex these things are, never having seen one in this state before today.
The amount of mechanical componentry is remarkable, as can be gauged from the photo below showing various bits 'n' pieces in the dishes and boxes on the workbench.

This final photograph shows the assembly soaking in a fluid to degrease and clean the parts before any reassembly can be undertaken.

I am really looking forward to being handed the keys to this amazing machine and can't wait to hear the hum of the motor and the chatter of the typeball when I fire it up for the first time here at home.
That event should be sometime in July, when she makes it to Canberra from Perth.

Here is a short (2 minutes) video - done for a friend of mine - of this marvellous machine in action:-

Indy 500 1965 - Jim Clark's Lotus 38

Back in July I posted a small article about a model of the Ferrari P4 prototype sports-racing car and mentioned two others, one being this model - the Lotus 38 crafted by the (now defunct) Carousel 1 company.

Although rear-engined cars had been raced at Indianapolis prior to 1965 - Jack Brabham starting the trend in 1961 in a Formula 1 Cooper - it wasn't until Lotus and Ford mounted a major effort in 1963 that success finally eventuated two years later with renowned Grand Prix driver Jim Clark taking first place in 1965 in the Lotus type 38, seen in model form below. (All images enlarge to full size if clicked).

Generally considered to be one of the most beautifully-proportioned designs ever to race at Indianapolis, the Carousel 1 die-cast model, in 1/8 scale, replicates those lines perfectly and is looked upon as the Holy Grail of the Lotus 38 in model format.

It is superbly crafted and detailed - with even the individual buckles on the racing harness being accurately presented - and is finished in the exact green and yellow livery, complete with all sponsor's decals, as the real car.

Carousel 1 created quite a few models of the cars raced at Indianapolis and they have become highly sought-after since the demise of the business some years ago.
If you are looking for one, they regularly come up on Ebay, which is where I found mine.

P-Plates and V8s - two July milestones.

I've mentioned in a previous post that I had acquired a Holden Monaro CV8Z but at the time didn't have a recent photo of the car and proud new owner, so here is one that was taken just yesterday.
(Click on image for larger view).

But there is another milestone that was reached in July by which I am quite tickled, and that was passing my motorcycle P-plate test.
Here's a shot of me leaning over my Vespa GT200 which is sporting the new plate, which has to be displayed for 6 months, after which it can be removed. In a year's time, all being well, the Provisional restriction will automatically be removed from my licence.

Is it real or is it........Minichamps, GMP or Carousel 1?

(All photos enlarge when clicked)
For many, many years I've harboured a desire to have really good large-scale models of my favourite racing cars and at the top of the list has always been the Ferrari 330 P4 of 1967, the Tipo 61 "Birdcage" Maserati of 1961 and the Lotus 38 which took Jim Clark to victory in the 1965 Indy 500.
So over the past year I've acquired  each of the cars mentioned above in the form of 1/18th. scale die-cast creations from GMP (the Ferrari), Minicraft (the Maserati) and Carousel 1 (the Lotus).
My photos do not do these models justice - the details are exquisite and have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. These are display-quality items, jewels of the model-maker's art.

FERRARI P4 SPIDER (open-top)
 (The #6 car raced by Jackie Stewart & Chris Amon at the BOAC 1000kms, Brands Hatch, 1967)

The P4 Ferrari has arguably the most beautiful lines of any sports-prototype racing car ever created. And this model captures those curves perfectly. I fell in love with this car back when I first saw a photograph in the mid 1960s and have held that feeling ever since.

There were four original cars made by Ferrari and I believe that they all exist today. Collectors would pay well into the millions of dollars to own one of these cars.

The model details extend to individual spark-plugs and wires, the seatbelt buckles, foot pedals, mesh over the intake grilles, bungee cords (which actually stretch!) holding the spare wheel in place.

The doors open and close, the steering wheel turns the front wheels and the suspension compresses.

This model is still in production and can be purchased on the internet from several highly reputable retailers in Australia, USA and the UK, to name but three countries.




Next up ...... LOTUS 38
(The #82 car as raced at the Indianapolis 500 by Jim Clark in 1965)