In the early days of cnc,Dean Smith & Grace a well respected British lathe buider,built such a machine as you describe.They called it a Monarch,and it was an extremely rigid machine.Had some form of concrete base.By the eighties you couldn`t give them away,due more to the GE550-1050 controls more than anything else.I haven`t seen one in years and sometimes wonder if there are any left.
Mark
www.ems-fife.co.uk