LUCIANRIDERS

We’ve probably all heard of “IT”, seen them on TV or even might have been lucky enough to see them when traveling abroad; but now the wait is over! The Segway has reached our shores and are set to make a splash in the Tourism tour market segment.

Brain child of Eliot Bailey, the founder of Lucianstyle (www.lucianstyle.com) which is a tour operation that is located next to Rehab bar on the strip in Rodney Bay. Twelve top of the line Segway X2 models were imported and are in use for both training and guided tours within the Rodney Bay area. The Segway X2 is the off-road version of the original PT (Personal Transporter) version that was invented by Dean Kamen and introduced to the world in 2001 amidst much hoopla.

Kamen was way ahead of his time and pronounced that the Segway “will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy” and announced that they expected to sell up to 40,000 units per year. Unfortunately for Kamen his company found it difficult to sell the units due to most countries banning the vehicle from both the roads and sidewalks. As a result they only managed to sell approximately 30,000 units from 2001 to 2007. However things are improving for the company as many countries including the US are relaxing the restrictions on where the vehicle can be legally operated.
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I  heard Charles Pinnock of Pinnock Brothers Inc. on Russell Lakes “Drive By” show on Tuesday and was very impressed to hear him promote his new line of vehicles. What a breath of fresh air to hear a Car Salesman promote his product truthfully and intelligently!

Charles has recently returned from living and working in the US for some twenty years and now back home in St. Lucia, and plans to be the first automotive importer of Chinese pickups to actively promote the rugged and affordable aspects of these sometimes maligned and misunderstood vehicles.

Charles started his endeavor by traveling to China to see for himself a number of the Chinese manufacturers in order to choose what he thinks to be the perfect “do it all” pickup for the West Indies Market. Yes, the big picture is to market these vehicles all over the Caribbean including Guyana and the bigger islands like Jamaica.

Charles has a back ground in Aeronautical engineering having worked for American Airlines as a manager in the maintenance department. His approach to setting up a new vehicle dealership has been one based on his excellent engineering background and he has used his skills to pick apart the vehicles that were available to him.

After visiting a number of different manufactures, he was impressed with the Pickups being produced by the Anhui Changfeng Yangzi Motor Manufacturing Co. located in Anhui China. They have proven willing to work with Mr. Pinnock to customize the range of vehicles that will be exported to St. Lucia and so far this is already bearing fruit.

CMC manufacture pickups that are based on a Mitsubishi chassis and use diesel engines that are licensed from Isuzu but manufactured by themselves. The major difference between these Chinese made vehicles and their Japanese counter parts are the philosophy behind the design and build quality. Read the rest of this entry »

Drag Wars Invasion has been declared the biggest gathering of foreign drag cars ever for a Caribbean event!!!

A large foreign contingent representing three countries made their presence felt at the second Drag Wars invitational drag racing event held on February 21^st and 22^nd to celebrate St. Lucia’s 31^st independence anniversary.

Building on what was a very successful inaugural first Drag Wars event that was held last year on December 5^th and 6^th at the abandoned Beanfield airstrip in Vieux Fort but better known as The Base; Absolute Promotions outdid themselves and have been at the receiving end of numerous accolades from both competitors and government officials who attended the event.

Neil Beepat along with Autosport Promotional Ltd. of Trinidad went to great lengths to ensure that this was an event to top any that had been held in this part of the Caribbean to date and was probably one of the largest events of its kind that could come close to matching the annual Barbados rally which is the premier motor sporting event in the Caribbean.  Read the rest of this entry »

Friday all of the foreign cars arrived at the track after being offloaded form the two ferries. Here are some shots of the cars at the track.

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Classic Car Show at Beausejour!

The gentleman’s game was replaced with classic cars along with an eclectic collection of show vehicles at the Beasejour Cricket Stadium on National day, the 13th of December.

Russell Lake, of “Drive By” fame, the popular car oriented show that airs on Helen FM, finally put his money where his mouth is by promoting this unique event which promised some of the oldest cars still existent in St. Lucia today.

For those of us older than 40, it seemed like just yesterday when many of these older cars traveled the roads of St. Lucia; but now they are mainly an extinct breed. Either being consumed by rust in some forgotten field or having gone to the various land fills around the island. Fortunately a few have survived the ravages of time and proud owners are now into restoring these old classics and were anxious to showcase them for all to see.

The rules were simple, the car must be 20 years or older or in the case of kit cars of which there were three fine examples, must be representative of a vehicle over 20 years old. That was about it! No rules for working engines or period parts were being enforced; a number of cars were brought in on trailers but as this was a stationary show, it did not matter.

The oldest car was a Morris Minor 1000 circa 1965, this car was resplendent in dark blue and has been very nicely restored. Read the rest of this entry »