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A Lesson To Be Learned?

FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
29/01/2015

At the time of writing, there are signs that the Marussia F1 team might be saved. Whether or not that happens is immaterial to my thesis. The F1 team was bought (from Virgin) and renamed in order to launch Russia's first supercar.

At least five Marussia GT cars were made, you can see them pretending to race on YouTube. They are quite pretty and their engines come from Cosworth. On paper, at least, there is nothing wrong with them, but who would want to splash out serious money on a car made in Russia? And where is the nearest dealer?

It's a fair bet that everyone who reads this has sketched a dream car. When I was at school, there were lessons set aside for that very purpose. On the timetable they were down as 'French'.

I have lost count of the number of sports car projects which have been launched and have sunk with hardly a ripple. In some cases I have met the men behind the project and heard their optimistic sales forecasts. I have always held my tongue because these guys were speaking of their dreams.

Many designs have been well-considered and some even had famous names attached, both to the design and on the badge. The fact is that most have been bitzas, bitza this, bitza that. A small project cannot afford to have bespoke parts made and none of them are properly tested.

When McLaren launched the F1 in 1992, it made five prototypes. Before McLaren launched its new road cars, it had at least two dozen prototypes running in every environment. The size of sand grains is different in the Gulf states to, say, the Sahara and sand can get in everywhere.

The original Mini had all kinds of problems. A few prototypes were sent out to test, but all the testing was done in the UK and 1959 was an unusually dry year. Water in the electrics was not picked up, nor was underfloor water seepage. The fact that the (optional) heater was no use in Canada in winter was a factor which went unexplored.

Remember, we are talking about a landmark design made by a major manufacturer, the largest in Europe at the time. I would not like to guess how many millions McLaren invested on pre-launch testing.

Today prototypes are tested everywhere from Death Valley to the Arctic Circle.

McLaren also established a dealer network before it tried to sell a single car and each dealer had to hold a minimum stock of spares. The same is true of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, et al.

To launch a new marque, or to revive an existing one, needs big bucks. Maserati lost money for years having been taken over by Fiat, or Ferrari, or whoever is in charge this week, and Maserati is one of the great names. It is unlikely that Bugatti will be in profit in the foreseeable future (VW subsidised each Veyron to the tune of at least three million quid).

The glamour of being at the back of an F1 grid did nothing for the Marussia GT car, which has been abandoned. Which brings me to Caterham.

Caterham is a town in Kent and Caterham Cars was a Lotus dealer. When VAT displaced purchase tax in Britain in 1973, Lotus stopped making kit cars and customer racing cars. Under the old rules, racing cars and kit cars escaped tax, and most Elans, Europas and Sevens sold in Britain were partially-assembled kits.

In fact, there were outfits to assemble the kit for you, provided you declared to the excise man that its assembly was all your own work.

Graham Nearn, owner of Caterham Cars, reached a deal whereby he could continue production of the fibreglass-bodied Lotus Seven Mk IV. Even though the Mk IV was the best of the line, buyers did not like its looks. Graham hit pay dirt when he revived the Mk III. The Seven found a niche, it became a cult car in Japan, and Graham had to fight law suits to ward off the Seven's many imitators.

Tony Fernandes decided to launch an F1 team which was called 'Lotus'. David Hunt, younger brother of James Hunt, believed he owned the title to 'Team Lotus'. There was a legal battle and Fernandes bought Caterham Cars and renamed his F1 team.

Traditional Caterham Seven owners have been unfazed by all this. They want 'a motorcycle on four wheels' which is approaching its 60th birthday, the original concept was that good.

Fernandes said that he was going to launch a new range of Caterham models, on the back of Formula One. We are still waiting, but then Caterham has set a record for entering the most Grands Prix without scoring a single World Championship point even under today's system which rewards tenth place.

Graham Nearn tried to sell a modern Caterham design. There was nothing wrong with it, it was a handsome machine, but it was not a Seven.

Tony Fernandes has been successful in two difficult business areas, hotels and airlines, he is nobody's fool, yet he has been suckered into a common fantasy, which is making your own car, a fantasy which has financially damaged almost everyone who has pursued it.

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READERS COMMENTS

 

1. Posted by jasman, 03/02/2015 0:42

"PDA, all of the companies you mentioned were auto manufacturers that went racing. Mike's missive was clearly about racing teams that tried to become an auto manufacturer."

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2. Posted by PDA, 02/02/2015 19:41

""Leaving aside companies like Ferrari, Lotus and McLaren, the only modern F1 team to be successful with road cars is Ligier"
How about BMW, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and of course Mercedes Benz?
"

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3. Posted by AndyG, 30/01/2015 5:46

"Sorry Mike, Caterham is in Surrey not Kent, although the cars (severn's that is) are built in Kent. Don't like to be pedantic but you probably would be!"

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4. Posted by petes, 30/01/2015 3:53

"This is an extremely apt headliner for what Tony is finding out, long overdue, in the hard real world."

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