Quote Originally Posted by Normb666 View Post
One of the things I was trying to bring out was what Chris J just said - the "old order" of Strat enthusiasts is being replaced, or maybe augmented, by a different type of person entirely. It's the sort of person who's into cars, has realised the Stratos is a classic and wants a piece of it,
I should point out that back in the late '80s kits were being professionally built by approved builders. For Example my "Shades" was built by Bob Pilot of Courtney Garages (at the time the only GH approved Transformer builder). I have eye waterying bills of over £30k spent then on the build, and that was around a Beta unit. The customer was involved in all the decisions and came away with and extremely well built Replica. Guy and or Gerry may know how many customer Transformers hit the market. My point is that there were those folk back then. I am one of those who wanted a finished article (not that I did not make it more finished), but I am not a "builder" SEC member but a "driver" SEC member and I suspect I am not alone....

Interestingly the customer of Shades did not own it for long and it went to an engineer who transplanted the 164V12 and uprated all the brakes and suspension units. I then bought it and fettled the upgrades and made some other improvements - now I just drive that. It is my favourite of my fleet.