Our October Clubnight was a visit to Birkin NZ Ltd - an agency recently set up to assemble and sell the Birkin Seven, one of the new generation Lotus Seven derivatives, in New Zealand.
Birkin NZ is run by Jonathan Lane, who incidentally runs another business that supplies artificial joints and limbs to the medical profession - so now we all know where to get our ball joints from when we need them next!
The evening was especially interesting in that we were able to personally meet up with Birkin designer/developer, John (Birkin) Watson, from South Africa who happened to be paying a visit to these shores. I've never seen clubmember, Peter Allen - one of two Birkin owners in the club, so inspired and absorbed at one of our clubnights! Peter even arranged a photograph to be taken of John and himself in front of his original Birkin so as to keep the memory alive!
John Watson explained how he had had to completely rebuild his business after being forced to leave Zimbabwe with only one car, a suitcase and $1000.00. Zimbabwe was the original base for his factory where he had employed 140 people and had Worldwide markets for his Seven. He now employs around 45 people in a new factory in South Africa and has been progressively redesigning his Seven to meet new markets and regulations.
The current car can be had with a number of options including parts made from Carbon Fibre and is based around a Ford Duratec power plant - a very impressive motor. Club members (including an ex rival builder!) seemed very impressed with the two examples on show during our visit.
Many thanks to John and Jonathon for showing us around the operation and supplying us with the necessary lubricant!
Apologies for the weird colours in some of the photographs which was due to difficult lighting conditions in the showroom.
