Monday, December 31, 2012

Peter Bryant - CAN-AM Challenger and the UOP Shadows


Have read this book, CAN-AM Challenger, over the break. Amazing. But the story for me goes back a very long way.  And the ending of the book strikes a chord with me now.

The UOP Shadows where something I followed as a kid in Autosport Magazine in 1971 and 1972.  The UOP machines were one of the stand outs to me of the era.  Over 14 years ago that inspiration, Pete Lyons Books, and the availability of some 1/43 starting kits allows me to put together some very detailed, small models of the cars.  I also wrote up what I did to put them together. Posted them to a car site in 2001, after leaving Japan and getting settled in Australia.

Peter Bryant emailed me in Feb 2002 on the making of articles on his two main Shadow cars.


"Hi Adrian, My name is Peter Bryant. I surfed into your web page about the 43rd scale model of the Turbo Shadow.
 I must say that it looks really nice, I can believe it took 4 months to do.  If you have read Pete Lyons Book CAN-AM Photo History you will have recognized my name.  I also have a small web Page at http://members.aol.com/pebryant/
I designed the Shadow 30 years ago and it makes me feel good to see that the car still draws peoples interest. Congratulations on making such a nice looking mode.
Best regards   Peter Bryant"

I was very happy to get this at the time, and see that it meant something to him.  Unfortunately, Peter has since passed away.

These articles are still at the GMPA site.

The Shadow Mk2 article at GMPA


The Shadow Mk3 article at GMPA


The contact details are very out of date.

I find it very interesting that to Peter the cars didn't win and didn't think things were working out, but to the sponsor UOP, they saw their involvement as a great success.  
I was just one in the crowd, and to me UOP was doing the most amazing things.   It is very true that you don't always see that at the time.

I was doing this modelling at a rather stressful time in my working life at Roland in Japan, and the effort I put into it indicates how much I was trying to distract myself from it.

Shadow MkIII 


A story itself on a completely different subject, and a bit like the end of Peters book.

Shadow MkIII 
I am also very proud of a music production system I developed over 30 years ago, the Fairlight Instruments CMI III, and can empathise with Peter's email when the system gets mentioned by someone somewhere.


Fairlight Instruments CMI Series III

Contact us at Art & Technology.


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