Gold strip

Sir,

With reference to the article “More Fun From Lotus” in your February issue, I would like to inform the writer that there is, indeed, a firm that employs a gold strip painter.

For all I know he may well be an ancient with a trembling hand and a drip on the end of his nose, but the fact remains that his hand-painted gold strips down the sides of my 2.8 Daimler Sovereign are indistinguishable from those applied with adhesive tape strip. In fact, I would go even further and say that they are straighter and longer-lasting. Certainly, since the car—and the lines at £8.50—were ordered from Stratstone’s of Berkeley Street more than a year ago the usual washing and polishing has had not the slightest effect on this splendid example of the craftsman’s work—a happy outcome which, I am sure, would not have been the case with the synthetic strip which your contributor, quite rightly, condemns.

Since the lines were hand-painted on, the cost may well have escalated, but it is far too soon for “D.S.J.” to bemoan the passing of the golden (strip) age.

Blackheath.
Bryan Parker.