When the only car you could get with a reversing sensor on was a BMW and they were a £750 extra I and a friend designed one. There being no Dragons about, and me being an iggerant thickie, I went round the Motor Show in Earls Court saying something to the effect of "Oi mister, you want to buy reversing sensors?". Mercedes sent me off the stand with a footprint in my bottom, sneering 'Are you accusing our customers of not being able to see where they are going?'.
Jaguar similarly scoffed and said 'Presumably that would mean you would have to drill holes in the bumper to fit sensors?' 'Yes' I replied. 'Well our customers would NEVER let us put holes in their bumpers'.
Well, Rover said yes, we are interested. The end result was that we sold them 1,000 a month at £75 each. They charged the customer £350 each, less than half BMWs price. The neat bit was that they only cost us £25 each to make and deliver. And when Rolls Royce tested them and said they were far better than anything else on the market, I was on cloud nine. I still have the first cheque from Rolls Royce, kept as a souvenir of one part of my life. Volvo bought some and put them in all sorts of tests and sent them off to Gothenburg for evaluation. Gothenburg said they liked them and would get me over there to explain how they work, but at that time they were having a lot of trouble resolving faults on the car alarm systems.
I was demonstrating them at a motorhome show. The sun was shining, everyone was enjoying their bank holiday, Acker Bilk and his band were walking round playing, the Tiger Moth was looping in the sky. After one demonstration an elderly couple asked me if this would detect a small child. 'Yes, it would' I replied. Then they started to cry. The old lady had reversed over and killed her grand-daughter on their driveway. They told me what happened. Then to me, the sky turned dark, the band was silent and the plane disappeared and I started crying as well. This is the sort of thing that drives you on if you have an idea.
I gave it up because the software needed enhancing and the guy responsible wanted a pile of money before he did any more work. He was not entitled to it according to the contract we signed so I would not pay him. The deal was he did the software and then when we sold some he would have a share of the profits.
Anyway then BMW bought out Rover and you can't sell anything to a German company unless you are yourself a German company. They conveniently forget all about the EEC, it doesn't apply to them.
