“Lyons,, BBlack here”. It was always a respectful tone between the two westmidland automotive “Lyons, way. William Lyons held the phone slightly away from his ear as if to emphasise his mild aversion to the man from the Standard Motor Company.
Alice Fenton hovered. Lyons looked up at her, he knew she worried about Captain Black and his brusqueness. She always called him a bully by profession. He had told her that was what it would take if this country was going to beat the Germans. True that, she’d said. “Just to let you know I won’t be building your 2.5 and 3.5 litre engines after the war, or the chassis”, Black said in a matter of fact tone. “We are consolidating our range of cars and concentrating on massproducing the Vanguard”.
“Oh”, Lyons replied, equally coolly. “That means you will want to sell the tooling then”. It was a statement of fact. He had been over this scenario many times when he’d been unable to sleep at night, pondering 101 different possibilities. This was one of the good ones. One with the chance of a big potential benefit. As long as the price was right.
“Hmm. Yes”, Black hesitated. “Hang on, just looking for the asset register. Here we go, tooling for both engines stands on our books at a tad over £16K. Still interested?” -1-
“Hah, yes”, Lyons said, formulating a strategy in his mind.
