Scarecrow. It is a very small world. The shop you mention still here. Yes, the rude fat lady also still there.[X(]
The greatest archevement we see so far is a scratch build 1/350 flower class with mini-Z control board. That same guy also built a 13" CSS Virginia with fully functional cannon shooting white baby powder.
I also attempted unsucessfully to convert a Acadamy U-IX boat.

But I know some Japanses able to stuff the U-VII (1/150) with 2 servo, a Gyro, ESC and the rest and 4AA size Ni-MH[X(]