The next morning we had the usual full English breakfast and headed off to Lancaster Castle. This castle still functions as a courthouse and a jail, so you had to be careful what line you stood in: the line for the tour, the line for court hearings or the line to go to jail! Magnificent stone structure. Nothing this old back home in Chicago. The tour guide showed us one of the working courtrooms. Slightly modernized with electricity, but you could just picture the white wigged judges passing judgment by candle light. We headed down into the dungeon. These old cells were no longer being used, but I think they would go a long way in curing repeat offenders. Back in the 1600's the 3 foot thick stone walls with oak doors 3 inches thick would ensure digging was useless. The cells were about 8 foot square. We were told that the bare cell would often house 6 to 10 people. With no bathroom! The only light would be through an armored window at the top of the cell. Indirect lighting from the hallway candle would make its way into the cell... a little bit. But if the accused made too much noise, those windows were shut! To make matters worse, the judge only came to town around every 3-4 months. So if you were thrown in jail, even if you were innocent, you could very well die waiting to be judged. The tour guide gave us a little taste of seclusion by closing the door on us. Didn't mind the closed walls, but I couldn't imagine putting up with the smell of 8 people using one corner of an 8 x 8 cell for a bathroom. P-U!
We spent some time touring the old-old church before heading out to TVR. You know, I spent more time in churches during one week in England than I have in 10 years in the States. That's strange, that sudden lightning bolt was awfully close to my house!
TVR is located in the little industrial town of Blackpool. Another factory right in the middle of an urban setting. Houses right across the narrow street. The parking lot had several newer TVRs to view. They sure are beautiful, but nothing compared to what was inside. I'm not talking about the cars inside. I'm talking about the tour guide. Wow! Hubba-hubba!
Danielle was stunning. Maybe it was just the fact that we were away from our significant others. Maybe it was time-zone lag kicking in. Maybe she was just drop-dead gorgeous. Whatever, as we toured the factory, wherever Danielle went, the workers stopped to stand and stare. Worth taking the tour just for her! Oh, yeah! There were some cars there too. Fine looking cars indeed. The fiberglass bodies took 165 man-hours to create and prep for painting. Unfortunately, it is the opinion of us Lotus geeks that a lot of time was spent fixing the results of poor preparation and inconsistent workmanship. A lot of grinding and sanding going on to smooth out and prepare those raw fiberglass bodies for paint. Most of the factory was devoted to the fiberglass work. 1970's technology still at work here. Prepare the mold, spray in or lay in the fiberglass, cook it a little and pop it out. The interesting part was that they would cook the bodies with the chassis already
installed under it.
OSHA would have a field day here. Even us tourists would weave our way around buckets of raw fiberglass resin, and slip a little here and there on the drippings on the floor. No yellow lines to keep us away from the work here. Most of the workers were young lads. Since it was just a mundane job of grind-grind-grind and sand-sand-sand, there didn't appear to be any sense of craftsmanship.
The chassis are tube frames, all hand welded. They are pretty beefy little buggers. A lot of extra tubes by Lotus standards, but since TVRs have those big V8 engines, I suppose its all necessary.
As ugly as the bare fiberglass bodies were, they sure are beautiful once they spritz the paint on. Interiors are nice as well. Nice little toy cars. Nice factory tour. Really nice tour guide!
It was a long drive from Blackpool to Caterham, probably about 250 miles. Interestingly, we found out somehere along the way that Caterham is not in Caterham! Used to be I guess. The main dealer is still there, but the factory is in an industrial town east of London. We found the factory about 8:00 at night and then set out to find a hotel. This was the only time we had problems finding a room. We spotted a hotel, but because of the one way streets and twisty roads and frontage roads, it took us a half hour to get to it. Once we finally got to the front door, we found it was REALLY expensive. They were nice enough to call around, but the lovely lady could not find us a reasonable hotel anywhere. Rich had a brainstorm. He noticed Brands Hatch on the map about 20 miles away. Brands Hatch is a racing town with a racing circuit. There were no races that week, so there were bound to be hotels with vacancies. Off we went. Found the track, found a busy pub and asked the bar maid where we could find a couple of rooms. Just up the road, you can't miss it. Believe it or not, we didn't miss it. The parking lot was dark and the door bell didn't work. We banged on the door for a few minutes and then noticed the door was open. As we opened the front door however, two beady little eyes and growling teeth were staring back through the dark at us! Whoops! We'll wait right here, nice doggie. The owner came down and peered at us suspiciously through the window for a few minutes before deciding we were harmless. We asked how much for a couple of rooms and she had to think about it for a while. Like, how much can I get these guys for, and are they going to trash my B&B? It ended up to be the cheapest stay of the whole trip - £20 a head. We headed down the road in the dark to a restaurant for some dinner.We arrived at about 10 and the bar maid said the cook left for dinner! Why would the cook go somewhere else for dinner? Oh well, we had a few pints and waited. Dinner at 11 was just like dinner at 5 - just OK. But the pints were lovely!
