Success is on the way - finally!
The two solar ice cream wagons proved their worth. They attracted a lot of attention. In Zurich, our solar ice cream wagons were the center of attention. They were operated by Heinz and Thomas Enzeroth from the company Sorbetto. Their ice cream was extremely tasty and business was really good. Mr. Brunner, the sales manager of Frisco-Findus, came to our workshop and wanted to have some of these solar ice cream trolleys as well. We agreed and got the order to convert two sales stands bought in Australia to solar energy and to build three more solar ice cream wagons. We had a lot of work and threw ourselves into it. Also, for the first time, we didn't have any money worries this time and were able to use the resources. Nevertheless, we worked day and night. The customers should be satisfied.
Stefan Rittler's diploma thesis was the construction of a simple, open, electric sports car. I had good connections with the head of the training workshop at ABB. That's where this sports car was to be built. The idea was to have a very simple vehicle where every single part could be built by the apprentices themselves. At the end, the apprentices should be able to drive the product they had built. We got very far with the preparations. In the end, however, the ABB company refused: the veto had come from the highest level in the management. In case something went wrong, the risk was too great for them. They didn't want any bad press as a result of an apprentice project. Stefan and I didn't let up. You can only tell if the construction works when the product is ready and can be tested. Without further ado, we decided to build the vehicle in our workshop in addition to the solar ice-cream vehicles and the vehicles for senior citizens. It was a tricycle in the style of the old Morgan vehicles from England. Stefan's work was a special suspension design that included roll compensation for cornering and brake pitch compensation for sharp braking and acceleration. I contributed the driveline layout and design to the project. The agreement with Stefan was that the Kyburz company paid for all the material to build the sports car. He worked for us as a designer to pay for the material. We all lived together in a shared flat anyway, and food and accommodation were also provided. It was many years later that my wish would come true and a training workshop in Welschland had indeed built several eRods in the meantime, a successor to this first open sports car.
We are exhibiting again at the Geneva Motor Show
This time we wanted to take our senior vehicles, the ice cream parlour Solar-Eis and the electric sports car under construction. The pressure increased and again we worked through the weekends. A new stand was also needed. I didn't want to go back to the pink and brown stand that my former neighbour had that was designed to display garden furniture. Jürgen Mohr, who manufactured chassis for us with his steel construction company, had recently organised an exhibition for Excalibur sports cars. We were able to make use of his stand. This consisted entirely of raw steel plates that were oiled and shimmered mysteriously dark. The stand was beautiful, but quite gloomy for our products. How could we turn it into a bright and inviting presentation area? Jürgen had the idea: we did not use all the steel plates of the stand. We only shaped the paths on which the spectators should walk. We filled the spaces in between with original Carrara marble gravel! This gravel was cheap to get, white as a sheet and made a great contrast to the oiled steel plates. So we transported all the material to Geneva: our vehicles, the brochures, the lighting - this time we hadn't forgotten them. Then all the heavy steel plates and finally 3.5 tonnes of white marble gravel. We set up the stand with great enthusiasm. What we hadn't thought of: the 3.5 tons of gravel! It was quite a job to shovel this material onto the stand. It made us sweat, and all the stall holders around us swear. Of course, shovelling kicked up lots of white dust, which settled on all the stands and the neatly polished vehicles around. Fortunately, we had filled our solar ice cream bar well with the finest sorbetto ice cream. Plenty of dispensed ice cooled the minds of the gravel shovelers and the neighbouring stand operators back to a normal operating temperature.
All that shovelling had its effect. The visitors agreed: we had the most beautiful stand of the whole Salon Geneva! That meant something. A little less beautiful: all our vehicles were in the white marble fields. No visitor dared to go there. Everyone only looked at our vehicles from outside the stand or at most came up to the steel plates. From this point of view, no one was able to test-drive the vehicles. We were not able to have many sales talks. We could have sold many more stands than vehicles.
I learnt:
- If you shovel a lot of gravel at a fair, you also need a lot of ice to calm down your stand neighbours.
- At a trade fair, the focus should be on the vehicles, not the stand.