[Robert Logan]

Ben, Bill, Brad, Al, and all,

I to was not happy with the transfer of information from Cape Town to Australia. This was because they were up to their buts in alligators as I believe you say in the US (please correct me if I am wrong). I asked Andre to help with this matter and those who have been regulars on this forum will have enjoyed the many and varied posts Andre has made. Andre is a highly respected journalist in his native South Africa and is also very well known worldwide for his motor journalistic work. I also believe that he is one of the true GT40 replica "family" who has interests for the wellbeing of our industry. Last weekend I asked him to help me with the flowing of information to Australia and to put him on the Australian payroll. Andre has to send me a weekly report , with photographs, to Australia and this will be then passed on to the "expectany fathers" of the new cars. Andre was also the MD of CAV in their early days and left while that company when they were still producing the spaceframe cars. He has a great deal of experience to offer the team in Cape Town and I for one am extremely happy that he has agreed to join our team.

Regarding the progress of the cars in Cape Town, we have had a few hold-ups, in particular with the glass work. The original company tasked with producing our bodies was headed up by a guy who was one of the key personnel from CAV. He opened his own glass company and agreed to do our work. Like all new ventures he took on MORE work than he could handle (scared to say no and never get another job). This is a very common problem that many of us have experienced in our working life but it has caused me great worries. The decission to remove the work was made and now the company that do our bodies is recoginised as one of the top three in the whole of South Africa. I have spent a lot of time with the owner of the company over the last ten days and from day one he has had at least THREE of his staff on our work. The progress is great but I still do not expect the first body to appear for at least two weeks. I firmly believe that although this has been a set back regarding time , the quality of his work is nothing short of EXCEPTIONAL and all our customers will be very happy with the finished article and overall the movement of the body work is very much a positive step for Roaring Forties South Africa.

There has also been some other small areas of concern with regards to some of the work carried out on the cars under construction and ALL these matters have been corrected and I supose these can only be regarded as "fine tuning". This is my forth trip into Cape Town, my parts guy Sam has made his first trip to South Africa a month ago and will be returning here two days after I return from this trip. I hope you all can see the commitment that Roaring Forties is showing.

To Robbies credit he is proving literly everything on the cars by hand. What I mean by this is that ALL parts are being hand made to prove that they are correct and only then can they be forwarded to an outside contractor for mass production. This is the correct way of doing things engineering and again it takes time, but as I have always said "it must be right".

Regarding the company structure in South Africa, I was asked to be a partener in the venture but declined. This was done because I wanted the South African company to stand alone, for their management team to be allowed to manage without outside interference and for the company to take the profits they earned. The intelectual property and all the jigs and fittings to manufacture the RF's in South Africa belong to Roaring Forties in Australia and almost 2,000,000 Rand of my monies (including customers deposits) has already been invested in this project.

How are we going !!!!!!!

As soon as the first cars finally leave for the shores of both the UK and the US than the rest will follow on in our expected delivery of up to four cars a month but the first cars are taking the time. The critical path is now definately the delivery of the body parts and as soon as they arrive the cars will leave a few days later (kits) and a week to ten days later for the turn key cars (we have to fit and spray). We are having the dashes delivered first to get them upholstered so there are no other hold ups.

Lastly, please let me thank all those "expectant fathers" for their patience. The savings to you our customers for Roaring Forties coming to South Africa are without a doubt worth it. Things are taking a little longer than I expected and the set up costs are a lot more than I expected but the end is in sight and our prices are right.

Best wishes to you all,

Robert