Aldo and CRers,
The photo of the Rosengart got me looking at my *French Vintage Cars* book, which covers French automobiles and cyclecars from the end of the Great War to the onset of the depression. At the end of the book, I found these two paragraphs in the "Tail Piece":
"In the suburbs of Paris, men were toiling in the hundreds to build cars with their own hands. The bistros were full of chaps in overalls, snatching a hasty glass of wine before working overtime. They laughed and made ribald jokes together, for the did not know that the depression was just around the corner, which would swallow them up. Above all, Marc Birkigt was building the Hispano-Suiza, that poem in metal, the greatest car of all. "In this tremendous period of history, all these great men were striving mightily to build better and yet better cars for the fair land of France. Today, the French motor industry consists of a few impersonal giants and the gaiety and gusto are gone."
I know a trip to most bike shops these days may make it seem that a few impersonal giants hold sway over bicycle design and the industry as a whole, but I think we're very lucky to have among our ranks such folks as Richard Sachs, Brian Baylis, Joe Stark, Curt Goodrich, Dale Brown, Peter Weigle, and all the other keepers of the flame. . . .
Thank goodness the gaiety and gusto are still with us.
nath dresser
spring green, wi