Courier Products Ltd was a small manufacturing company whose bread & butter lines were its in-house folding portable displays. Using the high-strength visually attractive ‘SRH’ hinging mechanism invented by Mike Smith, a co-founder of the company, these displays proved a long-lasting alternative to the many less expensive options on offer at the time. 
    Due also to the near frictionless nature of the SRH hinge, the company ventured into a number of innovative engineering solutions, leading ultimately to links with NASA at Langley in Virginia.

    Apart from the Ford in the ford, another incident at that time adequately demonstrated some of the more basic laws of physics, together with one of Africa’s more obvious driving don’ts of the time.
    On this occasion, after a week of particularly excessive summer rain, we were returning to the farm being driven by our mother, once again in that same old Ford. One chore my elder brother & sister and I really disliked on these jaunts to and from the farm was having to “do the ‘concertina’ gates”.
    Concertina gates, for those who have not experienced them, are no more than partly detachable sections of multi-strand fences, more often than not made with barbed wire. To remove or re-fasten the end post into both the top and the bottom wire loops on the fixed upright presented more than a little difficulty for the likes of us pre-teen children. On top of that, these particular ones were invariably caked in mud and cattle dung from being left on the ground while the livestock went through.
    As we approached the final gate at the top of a long and steady downward slope, Mother, a driving fanatic and lover of adventure in her day, jokingly said: “Let’s drive through the gate instead of opening it, shall we?”
    “Yes, yes, let’s.” I remember chanting in unison with my sister. My elder brother on the other hand remained silent, being somewhat more dignified in such circumstances, while also no doubt concerned – as the car continued unchecked – as to exactly what our mother intended. Presumably, she would stop at the last moment and give us a great thrill.
    Onward we careered through the thick mud, always being sure to keep a straight line, never swerving to avoid the potholes, which might end us in the ditch on one or other side. Headlong we hurtled, all the while getting dangerously closer to the gate.
    The last few moments before it happened are etched on my consciousness for all time: the growing silence, those startled looks of disbelief. There was no great noise at first; not until one of the posts, plucked from the soft ground, swung into the side of the car with a loud thud. There followed a sequence of semi-musical ‘twangs’, as strand after strand of wire was pulled from the posts on one side, followed by, as we skidded partly in that direction, some teeth-rattling scratchings, as the heavily-barbed fence the opposite way wrapped itself around the front and down that side. We slewed back in that direction, continued a short distance and then straightened up before eventually being eased to a stop.
    In sheer admiration and reverence with all the innocence of any six-year-old, the silence was broken by my blurting out: “You really did it Mum.”
    Such a remark, to my everlasting disappointment, was not welcome and only seemed to irritate the now motionless driver, who promptly turned with a disapproving scowl.
    What remained of the fence lay strung out behind in either direction like a bevy of taught and over-stretched guitar strings, some still attached to posts, some broken and others heading at various angles up the slope attached to some distant upright. As words poured forth from our newfound maternal hero that the brakes had failed, brother, sister and I spoke not a word. Preferring to believe that such excitement could only have been deliberate, three quizzical, unconvinced, semi-smiling faces only served to irritate even more.
    When, as usual, the pick-up and the oxen had rescued the stricken car, we were more than a little disappointed by my father’s corroboration of the cause: that the brakes had in fact failed. He explained how the mud and water in those old-fashioned non-power drum brakes had reduced the friction between the brake linings and the brake drums, that the momentum of the car’s mass had taken us through the gate, and that we were only saved from continuing headlong down the slope by the tension of the strands of wire.
    To this day, I still find it extraordinary that this was the only time any of us can recollect so fateful a remark:  “let’s drive through the gate” – and we certainly never heard it again.
    Many another such incident occurred during those early days on the farm – some funny, some dramatic and some plain stupid. To us at the time, they were normal everyday occurrences; but few, if any, I suspect, had a bearing on the creation of a latter-day one-off special Roadster. So, with good reason, they have been omitted from this story – or, if nothing else, saved for another.