A Few of the People in our Shop

Today's news is dominated by #coronavirus. For the first time in my life, a single news story as dominated not just the national media, but the worldwide media. One of the issues that's emerging is the divide between those who can work from home, and those who have to be in a workplace.

There is an emerging class divide between those who can shelter at home and the people who service them - the delivery drivers, take out cooks, gas station and convenience store clerks, and of course the staffs of grocery stores, pet food stores and all the other essential businesses where the employees must be out front service others. Much is made about how little those people are paid, for taking such risk in this uncertain time. While that is a valid observation, it is not the point of my post.

Instead, I'd like to take a moment to show you some workers at our automotive complex. We work on cars, so we have to be here. This isn't a job you can do from home. We won't get rich doing this but we do earn better than average wages for our area. All of us are craft workers, creating functional art in the form of collectible motorcars. All of us are mechanics, keeping our clients on the road when their cars break down. At this moment, all of us are worried about our health and the future, but we are thankful to be doing what we love, and to have a clientele that supports us.

Here is Bruce Caron, brazing up a bracket to mount a vintage Becker radio in a 40-year-old Bentley.

Here's Bob Toti, loading software into a Rolls-Royce Phantom

Here's Paul Ferreira, building up an engine for a BMW.

In this photo Daniel Ferrari is tracing a difficult electrical problem in a Porsche

Here Salvador Zayas cleans up the vintage Bentley, after Bruce installed the radio

Meanwhile, Paul assembles another engine, this one for a Land Rover Discovery in from Southern Connecticut.

John Manning measures twice and cuts once, to fit a starting crank to this 1939 Bentley touring coupe.

In this photo Bud Orlich repairs aged window lifts in a Silver Shadow. It is hard to believe we've been doing these car together here since that Shadow was an ordinary high end used car, and not a classic.

Here's Bobby, installing a newly rebuilt front spring and strut . . .

In a different time, we looked with pride on John Rando's Rolls-Royce as it won another 1st place award at the RROC National Meet. We look forward to the return of those shows, but we wonder how long that will take . . .