My son had a random day off school yesterday so he asked if we could go to the Pagani car showroom in London with a friend (we recently found out it was quite near us in a random industrial park). It’s also next to Topaz car detailers.
We turned up and were told we needed a booking - the manager said he’d normally not let me in but saw I had kids with me and said we could come in for ten mins. We ended up staying for about 20-30mins while he took us round the cars in their showroom (they had a few different Zondas including a one-off model that looked like the Revolucion, and Huayras) talking about each one and answering our questions. I got the impression he was actually quite glad for company/distraction; it otherwise seemed pretty quiet. It was also interesting learning about the practicalities of car ownership - e.g. he was saying how when he took the cars for a test drive on delivery, he had to drive a pre-agreed route with the insurance company which had a lot of places for easy recovery should it break down and avoided places it might be easy to be hijacked. It was also interesting how many cars are owned by a single owner - three of the Zondas were owned by one guy. And of course v few of the cars actually get driven (he said he had to drive one to Brighton for its transport to a US owner - said he’d just driven it more than it’d ever get driven again).
All that aside, I’ve never seen a Pagani IRL before - and they were all beautiful - real works of art. Going to Topaz after, they made the Ferraris, Lambos, etc. all look quite pedestrian (even the limited edition models like the 812 Competizione) even in their blinged-up guise.
We then went to Topaz and it was a similar story - they weren’t keen to let us in initially but then ended up giving us a workshop tour, explaining what they were doing to each car, what services were available and how they quality checked the work (a multi day process). Have to say it was more interesting than I thought it would be.
The boys were a bit awestruck and had an amazing time - was a much better experience than I was expecting! The only downside was both places asked we didn’t take any pictures
I had forgotten that we bought a sofa from them in the early 90s and got it shipped up to Edinburgh. When it arrived it was too big to go through the front door so ended up coming in through the window on a crane.
Six years later and I hired bunch of likely lads to move it out to Marchmont. I suggested a crane but they reckoned it would be much more cost effective to put the big lad in the street and just kind of lob it oot the windae
I did summat similar for a friend who had got a nice mod supplier promotion and moved to those god awful flats on the Thames at Chelsea harbour. It was up 2 floors rather than down just as well
Slightly more extreme, but when I worked in the Hospice world I went round to one of the elderly volunteer’s houses with Malwarebytes on a stick to get rid of a virus for her, I think we forget how easy it was for the unwary to get their computer fucked 20 years ago.
She was a Maori opera singer and teacher (she taught Kiri Te Kanawa) and she had an extensive 3 bed gound floor flat in a posh part of Hove.
In her front room she had a recently restored walnut veneered Steinway Grand Piano,
She said that her mother had it made in the early 1900’s and it had been around the world with her.
I looked around and asked how on earth it had got into the flat.
‘Oh they had to take all the windows out and half of the that wall and then rebuild it all afterwards’ she said, ‘It was a bit messy’
I should have taken some pics, I wasn’t there for the move but the piano was stunning.
As a postscript, it occurred to me after that had I called in advance, which I almost did, to see if they were open, I’d have been told to book in a visit (which may not have happened - see end*). So it happened to pay-off just turning up - one for the ‘better to beg forgiveness than ask permission’ brigade.
*apparently booking a visit means they organise a customer to come with their car so people can sit in it, hear the engine, chat to them, etc. This is awesome and I will try and do that, but the downside is it doesn’t happen that often and when it does, it’s at a date/time convenient to the customer, which may not work for visitors.
Had a conversation with a crofter a couple of weeks ago, he travels south fairly regularly and is considering buying a couple of tonnes to bring back on his trailer. Can be purchased at various outlets at £545/te
It can’t possibly cost £200 to ship a 1te pallet over from Aberdeen. They’re ripping people off.
