Given that both Zenos founders Ansar Ali and Mark Edwards are former Lotus men the location of the firm's industrial unit next door to Hethel could be seen as somewhat provocative. For PH though it was mainly convenient, given we were at Lotus yesterday and tooling about on the test track the other side of the fence. Rude not to call by on our way home and catch up on the latest with
the E10
public debut at Autosport
What little that's there 'falls easily to hand'
Seemingly we timed our visit well too, Ali explaining that the show car was shortly to be taken apart before the next stage in the E10's path to becoming a living, breathing car. It looks pretty much there even now, the car pictured based around the fabricated spine we saw on our original visit rather than extruded beam production cars will use. As such it's a little heavier than the targeted 650kg dry weight and there are small details to resolve. Like the fact the pedals aren't actually connected to any controls. No chance of a sneaky test drive around the car park then...
We can dream though and from the driver's seat the first thing that strikes you about the Zenos cockpit is how roomy it is, the footwell capacious and even with the roll cage's side bars - covered by a trim panel - in place and plenty of elbow room. With control points set by the wooden buck we sat in a few months back the Ford Focus donated gear stick is set high and a short flick of the wrist away from the wheel. It's minimal, for sure, but stylishly so.
Inside and out the look of the E10 really is impressive, though this did have unexpected consequences. Ali talks of hurriedly having to post up some 'starting at £24,995' banners for the Autosport stand after earwigging passing showgoers saying 'yeah but it'll be 50-grand won't it, can't afford that'.
Floating body offers glimpses of structure beneath
It's a measure of a success of the design process that it both looks good and offers a visual suggestion of the car's construction and core values - the contrasting wings and floating sections of bodywork have an additional functional benefit in being cheap to replace after minor track dings for instance. As previously discussed the same goes for the
carbon chassis tub
, which Mark told us would be 'less than five grand all-in' to replace if you had a really big off. Stiffness shouldn't be an issue either, the aluminium spine in isolation designed to be torsionally more rigid than an Elise tub.
Which all bodes well for the driving experience, the mule intended to turn a wheel for the first time in March with Zenos's Chris Weston doing the initial testing. Around the same time Zenos will up sticks and move a couple of hundred yards into a larger unit on the Hethel Engineering Centre where production E10s will be assembled at the rate of three per week when deliveries start this time next year.
Autosport secured 20-odd deposits already and Ali has been overwhelmed by the interest, not least from overseas. PHers are among the initial customers too, one who put his order in sight unseen before popping down to see the car apparently dumbstruck on the threshold at the sight of the E10 in the flesh. Passionate reactions like this are clearly a huge boost to the team too and reward for the long hours required to get the car ready for its debut.