Engine Punk

At the 2008 Exeter Kit Car Show, I was particularly struck by the range of electric cars on offer. It seems that the kit car industry, by virtue of its smaller size, is in a position to respond to environmental pressures more quickly than mainstream manufacturers. The Battery Vehicles Society had a stand at the show and featured among the more obvious alternative technologies this Mulliner bodied Wilson, which was built from 1935 to 1936 in Leicester. As built, this car would have had a 40 mile range for every charge and a top speed of 27 mph. Only 40 were made but the owner of this example has another and rumours persist of others languishing in gardens in places like Birmingham. He told me that the realistic range for this car is now down to 20 miles because the batteries are a bit tired. I think that is allowed. A drop-off in performance is only to be expected after 70 years but that is definitely what I call sustainable motoring. The guys on the electric vehicle stand were ve...

My earlier blog about submitting files to Lightning Source prompted a comment from none other than Aaron Shepard, doyen of self publishing authors and the man behind Aiming at Amazon . Aaron has tried just about every alternative when it comes to producing books over the Internet and is a regular contributor to the self-publishing and print on demand discussion groups on Yahoo. If it hadn't been for his book I would still be metaphorically banging the rocks together and going "Ook!" instead of already having the first part of the Soul Trader Trilogy available on Amazon. I was so impressed with Aiming at Amazon that I gave it 5 stars when I reviewed it on Amazon. You don't believe me, click on link. Aaron must be cruising the Internet, righting wrongs and fighting corrupted files wherever he can find them for he found my blog entry soon after it was published and left a comment. His advice was to stop messing about with Open Office Writer and to use Adobe Acrobat...

Yesterday I went up to Exeter for the Kit Car Show at the Westpoint Showground. This was my first visit after a lapse for a few years and, considering the economic gloom that pervades the UK at the moment and the fact that kit cars must inevitably be funded from disposable income, I found the mood very upbeat. There was a great variety of machinery on show and plenty of people about, too. Previous shows had consisted largely of Lotus Seven variants -- what some of my friends call Locost Caterfields -- or AC Cobra replicas that this year there seem to be more original designs. The standard of construction was also a vast improvement over what I had come to expect. I chatted to several stallholders several aspects of the current kit car scene struck me. I've already mentioned the dramatic increase in the quality of the product. Manufacturers have now realised that well finished cars that result from an easy build reflect well on their brand name they can generate more s...

 Last night, I checked into the customer area on the Lightning Source website to check the status of my uploaded files for The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb. The proof was ready for The Wormton Lamb but today I had a message from my customer rep to tell me that the text file for The Horsepower Whisperer was corrupted on pages 5 and 6. These pages are the ones that feature the maps at the beginning of my books. They consist of layered drawings and if any part of the pdf was likely to become corrupt this was it. However, all my files at home look okay so I can only assume that the CD that went to Lightning Source in the states was damaged in some way. I would've uploaded a new file for The Horsepower Whisperer and ordered a proof for The Wormton Lamb tonight but the Lightning Source website is being maintained at the moment. I regenerated a text file pdf for The Horsepower Whisperer just to make sure there were no problems but notice something odd in the proces...

It was as we were returning from Andover and making a pit stop for fuel that we spotted this splendid example of a Chevrolet Carryall. The following day was Remembrance Sunday and this Vintage Thing was prompting motorists into remembering the fallen. Just like John Sartain's Dodges, this is a remarkable survivor and is essentially a civilian vehicle that was pressed into service at short notice and without much adaptation. Its full title is a Chevrolet Series BJ Carry-All Suburban. As part of the AK series of light trucks it was rated by the military at half a ton and had the standard 85 bhp 6 cylinder Chevy engine. I am reasonably certain it's a 1942 model. How do I know? My big book of Chevrolet suggests the tailgates were different. On the '41s, it was split horizontally and the '42s had the option of a vertical split. The sheet steel pressings were essentially the same. Later versions of the Carry-All Suburban lacked the chrome on the grille. Whatever th...

Just in case you didn't know already, to see a larger image of any illustrations on either this blog or my Engine Punk blog that grab your interest or look like they might fascinate, all you have to do is click on it. And anything written in purple or blue - like Engine Punk above - is a link to something amazing. I just thought I'd mention it. Wouldn't want any of you to miss out.

As you can probably imagine, I am very excited by the prospect of seeing my new covers in real life. Lightning Source got back to me today to confirm my instructions. They just wanted to check that I really wanted to revise the files for The Horsepower Whisperer. Those for The Wormton Lamb we obviously a resubmission but as The Horsepower Whisperer was already in production they wanted to make sure that I wanted to revise it before they leapt into action. I'm glad they did this. I find there's never any harm in checking and I can only assume that they have found this out as well. Now that they have my confirmation, I can already see from my customer account area on their website that The Wormton Lamb as its new cover and a proof copy is already available for ordering. The Horsepower Whisperer, which has new files that both the text block and the front cover, is still in pre-media. The immediate timetable works out something like this. I should be able to order ...