Inna Horyova - who has flown in from Letara for the first time since the beginning of the year - makes her way to the corner of the big engineering hall where a few development and testing engineers are working on the final Zora prototypes for Letara with ABS. Various parts and tools are scattered around on the floor.
Inna catches Rodyn standing next to one of the big desks on the side of the hall together with one of his lead engineers, Vitalii Zhmesky. “How’s the progress on the ABS kits going?” she asks after greeting both men.
Discussing progress and an option for a 3rd Zora trim
Rodyn looks to Vitalii who answers after a short pause. “Okay… I guess”, he mutters. “Some of these aftermarket kits are genius in some parts and a hair-raising kludge in others. Good enough to pass the certification tests if tuned well right before… if they don’t test too much, if you know what I mean.” Vitalii looks back to Rodyn.
“All I can say is that we’ll have something by the end of the year that we can certify and sell over there, and be reasonably sure that even a failing or malfunctioning system wouldn’t make things worse than no system at all. We also have to train our mechanics over there so that they know how to fix these. They sure won’t increase our reliability scores…”
Inna nods. “I guess that will affect everyone, more or less, so I don’t think this’ll be a huge deal.” She pauses for a second. “I had a thought the other day about what we could do for our third assembly line… and this is a question you might not like at all.”
Rodyn and Vitalii braces themselves visibly.
“How difficult would it be to convert the 3-door into a convertible - cut the roof off, you know?”
“Cutting the roof off?” Rodyn tries - and fails - to keep his voice down. “Making a convertible is more than cutting the roof off! You need a lot of extra work to keep the whole thing from flexing, let alone developing the convertible top material and mechanism.”
“Especially since we spent quite some time to keep the whole thing quite light, you know”, adds Vitalii.
They are suddenly joined by two of the engineers - a middle-aged man and a woman - who were working on the Zora. Inna is not immediately familiar with them, but they look like twins to her.
“We couldn’t help but overhear…”, the woman begins unapologetically. “… but we may know someone who knows something about building convertibles.”
Rodyn reads Inna’s confusion right. “May I introduce, Anya and Andriy Mayster, children of Andriy Mayster Sr. The Mayster.”
“Your father built the sports car?” Inna beams. “It was a rare sight, but I loved seeing a… Triumf, right? Before I went over to Letara full-time, at least. How is your father doing?”
“Alright, semi-retired, you could say”, answers Andriy Jr. “He never officially stopped building Triumfs, but I don’t think much happens these days in the workshop over at the other side of the lake near Glensk. Actually been a while since I was last there.”
“I know Dad keeps some of his old mechanics - and friends - on the payroll, for the occasional maintenance work. Everyone who has a Triumf wants to keep them alive.” Anya adds. “I am sure they won’t mind some bonus work, such as cutting the roof off of a 3-door Zora and doing some other things to it…”
Rodyn turns towards Inna again. “You think those would sell?” he wonders.
“It’s worth a try. Letara has very nice weather almost the year round, and we’ll almost certainly be the cheapest convertible option. Not going to be the biggest seller, but something special and unique for sure. Maybe we’ll even define a new market niche?”
Rodyn looks between Vitalii, Inna and Anya and Andriy and pictures how a 3-door Zora might look without a roof.
The base 3-door Zora hatchback, still with a roof
"There is no way we could run this on our premises here under the current circumstances. But if a Zora 3-door appeared over at the Mayster workshop… " He shrugs. “And I am sure there are ways to reimburse the folks over their for their expenses without anyone here easily noticing.”
Vitalii agrees. “It’s certainly a way out of the current restrictions, as long as we keep it low-key. We’d simply put any extra parts into the CKDs and you have to assemble everything anyway over there. No reason why you couldn’t also remove things, such as the roof.”
Rodyn looks at the Mayster twins. “Meet me in my office on Friday at 4pm. We can then discuss the next steps. Until then…” He points at the Zora ABS prototypes.
“Yes, comrade.” The way Anya turns around on her heels makes it look that she had to suppress a mock salute. Andriy follows her and they both get back to work.
The remaining three exchange amused glances.
Rodyn walks away with Inna. “So now it looks like I’ll be running a skunkworks with the Maysters, and that as Comrade Director of Engineering in my own company.”
“How far we’ve come…”, mutters Inna.
“You know what, I’ve never imagined that I’ll be looking forward to my upcoming retirement. But at the moment it’s only stuff like this that keeps me from pulling the pin a few years early. And I suspect Roman wouldn’t mind at all…”
