[Robin Craig]

So, not much activity over the winter so far, the corn harvest dragged on and thankfully we did not endure DON issues as those in SW Ontario did. I have others in parts foreign looking for action on their stuff as well, must get on that again.

The engine donated by Paul Singleton, while not moving has some progress in store, I have struck a deal between a great friend, who while absent from these pages is known to many, Nick Tilgner has agreed to rebuild the engine in a complex horse trade deal that will see him get something in exchange apart from money. We will both win. He is quite a VW fan and has done and is doing another VW engine for himself currently. I like the idea that it keeps things with the circle of friends. More on that elsewhere on this forum.

The tires have truly been a stumbling block for this project, both their availability period, the colour of them, and the cost and the money to fund that.

I went straight from corn harvest to my winter side job of snow plowing on nights and as many will realise, it has been a good winter for those of us who do that and don't announce airshows.

I have had a bunch of crazy quotes for tyres with the wrong tread pattern and the wrong colour, grey being available in droves it seems.

Finally my local KAL tire shop unexpectedly blew all the others out of the water by a large percentage. Initially they only had stock of 10 in their system but now have scared up the other 10 and I expect them to arrive in about a week with the tubes. They are a 10 ply rating which gave them concern but when I explained they are going on a split rim they said I should have no problems.

It seems these tires are used in the mining industry and hence the ply rating, I am thinking I don't need a spare but the voice in my head says no.

Lastly, while I had considered chemical stripping, another local new resource appeared at the metal supply shop this week and I got a favourable quote that makes it silly not to engage on.

I am going to start with the rear car tub and see what we can get done on that, and then feed them the front car engine cover and the front car later as money is around.

I will get the chassis frame jig back down to the shop in the next couple of weeks and finish that up and then get going on cutting metal.

So, all in all a good outlook from here to spring. There is a reasonable prospect that the rear car could get back together by this summer and make it out to a show perhaps.

While our garage is still not finished it did lurch forward with the roof trusses going on and getting strapped.

more later.