I don't want to promote too much here. But there's a video made by Petrolicious that shows the lift in use. You've got to put up with me yapping and with everything being all cleaned up for the shoot -- oh, and an old German car, too. But aside from all that...
The funny thing about the 'black thing' is: I picked it up second-hand -- it had never been cleaned up or restored. It had just been sitting around... for about 60 years. I plugged it in and was immediately able to dial my cell phone. It made me wonder: what's so great about today's smart phones? Are they going to be able to effortlessly connect to the network 60+ years from now?
The old things were built like tanks. And I never have to wonder where I set the cell phone down when I hear it ringing.