We never did find a gas station in the town of Caterham. We stopped at the Safeway for some more road food before we headed back out on the 'M'. Mark dined on a 'Prawn' sandwich. I was not as daring. We found several gas stations by the airport hotel, our final sleeping quarters.
We checked into the hotel and then took the bus from the hotel to the airport. We weren't heading home quite yet. We wanted to do a little running around in London on our last night of the great road trip. We took the "Tube' from Heathrow into London. They call it a tube for good reason. Apparently, they dug out no more than necessary and thus the underground tunnels were round. Therefore, the train cars were rounded at the top to match. Tall people had to move quickly to the center of the car or risk the sliding doors slicing off their heads! The tube was just like the "L" back home in Chicago. Lots and lots of people. Many of them very .... colorful. Two guys got on with spiked mohawk haircuts and ear rings, nose rings, eyebrow rings, lip rings and tongue rings. I didn't want to know if there were more rings in other areas of the anatomy. You can buy a one day pass for the tube and get on and off all day long all over London. Our first stop was the Tower of London, but of course, the last tour started 10 minutes before we got there. Same thing happened to Rich and Jack on their last trip there. Oh, well. We walked around and enjoyed the historic scenery and all the people milling about. Some very, very old stones made up the tower which by my interpretation was actually a short castle. But it did look a lot different than the Lancaster castle we had visited a few days previously. Probably had a different home builder. The Tower bridge looked like the pictures I had seen of London bridge. It was quite new and was the host of a lot of traffic.
We took the tube over to Leicester square where we found a lot of hustle and bustle. In fact, it was downright crowded. We found out that Leonardo Dicaprio was in town for the premiere of his new movie - The Mask. Throngs of teen-aged girls were crowding around the square. Wild screams and flashbulbs were going off every time someone thought they saw "Him'. The Bobbies on horseback kept everything under control. It was quite a crowd. Kind of like the Pope visit to Chicago. Or the Astronaut parades if you can remember that far back. Maybe this is what it was like when the Beatles came to London.
We walked and walked and walked. We stopped and took a few photographs where the very first Lotus showroom was supposed to have been in London. The building had no address on it and was in the process of being torn down, so we weren't sure if we were in the right place or not, but we were there!
We took the tube to Picadilly Circus. Where are the clowns? Oh there they are, it's those tourists from Chicago! Paul, Rich and Jack stopped into an Italian restaurant for some dinner. Mark and I wanted to be a little more traditional on our last night in England, so we went for some Fish & Chips. We found a little traditional storefront with the traditional proprietor hawking his wares. He looked to be a traditional British food vendor, I think his name was something like Ackmed Abdoola. "Yoo vant fish'n ships, Yes?" He prepared the traditional meal in the traditional deep fryer and served us in the traditional styrofoam boxes. We found a stoop to sit down on and watched all the people go by. Lots of "young" things in tight black pants and tall black, wide heeled, tall soled shoes. Standard hair style seemed to be straight and long, and usually brown. Seems to be the latest trend, almost a uniform. Looked great to us! A taxi driver was showing off his new ride. A brand new "RED" taxi. Everyone else's were traditional black. What a rebel. Traffic was just horrendous. We finished our fish 'n chips and the same taxicab was till in site at the end of the block.
We headed back out on the tube, exhausted from the trip, but we had just enough energy to sip a few pints in the hotel bar before sacking out on our last night in England.
Our trip through customs the next morning was as expected "interesting". We had all these car parts you see. I had a steering wheel, headlight ring and Lotus emblems in my back pack. In one box was a twin cam Weber head.
In reflecting back on the trip, Lotus had the neatest car (Elise), but the worst tour. No cameras, no passion, and no leadership/loyalty apparent. The assembly of the car was quick and efficient, ,just as the final product.
The Jaguar factory is most like a modern American assembly plant. No doubt I'm sure from some heavy influence from Ford.
Morgan was just like it has been for the last 40 years with the exception of the modern drivetrains. Aluminum over wood bodies and wood floors - incredible!
TVR was definitely 'stuck" in the 70's' technology. Lots of poorly made fiberglass that was ground into a beautiful finished product with a lot of man-hours of labor. They did have the most beautiful tour guides by miles. Absolutely stunning. The two we saw and the receptionist, could definitely be models. Of course your mind does play tricks on you when you have been away from home, sucking down copious pints of Guinness for a week!
Aston Martin's tour guide had passion for the cars he used to build. He stated simply that Aston Martin was the best in the world. Of course, he was also being paid well to give us the tour. The cars were nice, but I thought there was too much filing of the aluminum bodies. Looked to be a little thin in some areas when they were done.
Spyder was just a dirty welding shop, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Caterham was cool. I want a Caterham. Of course, the test drive in the racing Caterham at "aggressive" speeds has a large influence on that statement.
What a great time we had. And we were still friends at the end. What a great road trip!
