The story of Quickfit, part two: Flaig’s joints
The second article in a Classic Kit series on Quickfit focuses on the family that introduced standardised ground glass joints to the UK
In 1864 the writer Herbert Spencer paraphrased Charles Darwin’s idea of natural selection with the potent slogan ‘survival of the fittest’. Although Darwin himself would adopt the phrase, it struck a particular chord with the social and political Darwinists who likened society and the world of business to a dog-eat-dog world in which the weak were trampled and the strong and aggressive would thrive. Yet the analogy, while seductive, is in many ways misleading, as can be illustrated by the story of interchangeable ground glass joints in the UK. Today these fittings are almost synonymous with the name Quickfit, but their origin goes back two decades earlier than that brand.