Posted by John Nichols on July 31, 2004 at 17:41:43 from 165.91.197.137 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: Re: Rattletrap on Cam posted by andyb on July 31, 2004 at 12:09:30:
Dear Andy:
This message is in two parts as this is the third time I have done this, I kept loosing the image in internet explorer because of my own stupidity.
Rattletrap was designed by AR, like all good designers he fixed the errors of the models he copied from for the picture. I am sure he copied from the Trojan line and the car from Ian's picture, whose name escapes me, and I have lost this email so many times I am not going to look for the name of Ian's car.
There is a common thread to the three cars shown in the previous post's image, but there are enough differences to know AR tinkered as he tinkered with Amazon, Swallow and Beckfoot. He could not help himself and he would have made a good engineer - and driven his friends up the wall and down the other side. We have to tinker, and look where it has go us, using 21st technology and merely talking about sailing and camping and climbing, whilst our midriffs grow.
So Andy it is part Trojan, but more, and it is part Ian's car, but more. I am so used to looking at Engineering drawings I look for the subtle differences not the sameness. I have no doubt you saw the article - and I am sure I could write a convincing argument that it is a Trojan, which only a pedantic AR expert would question in the long run. Stick you hands up all the pedant AR experts. Ok you can put them down now.
I doubt Rattletrap was a real car as shown in AR's picture - close but he tinkered.
As an further example of this I read the AR book by Hugh Shelley(?) and there was stuff in that book that contradicts what is now accepted lore and I think in part that came from AR as he had met AR in the bookshop twice. Historians like us take a long time to settle on facts.
Just as an aside one of our bright students at TAMU has patented the idea of selling in one package an alternative Trojan (think on it) with a wet wipe (like for babies bottoms) in two sealed containers glued together. That's what 21 year old Texan boys do with the spare time - invent things they need. (I am laughing about now.) I wonder if we could translate
Trojan with wet wipe (into Latin I am sure it would sound better)
And finally, are there any more pictures of Rattletrap? As I recently lost most of my AR books to my 10 year old daughter.
John