Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)

[flemke]

lauda said:

That Colnago is nasty!

There was a feature in Rouleur magazine recently on Pegoretti (the issue is available free on their app if anyone is interested) and their stuff is incredible. I’ve just had a look on their website and I particularly liked this one:



It has a really sense of motion and momentum.

And this one also looked interesting:



ETA - looks like the Rouleur edition (19.7) isn’t quite old enough to be free on the app yet. I’m pretty sure all back issues were free the other week when I looked.

Although Dario was quite unwell about ten years ago (I think it was leukemia or similar), he recovered and had been back at work full-time. In August 2018 I was shocked to learn (from another cyclist in Richmond Park who noticed the frame I was riding) that Dario had just died of a heart attack. I believe that now his son and his long-time assistant are building frames under the Pegoretti name, although I have not heard reports of the quality of their work or their creativity - Dario was a hard act to follow!

[flemke]

Jacobyte said:

If titanium frames are your thing, then Firefly are worth a look for their custom anodised finishes:

https://fireflybicycles.com/finish-options/

I have some Ti frames, but - even at my level of muscular inadequacy - I don't like the way they flex. Yes, there's a weight penalty with steel frames, but for me they still offer the best combination of stiffness and comfort.

[flemke]

julesGB said:

flemke said:

Yes, it gets crazy. I once had a Colnago made with a custom factory paint job, the 'custom' part being a minimum of logos and nonsensical stripes, swoops and colour fades. They delivered it in the form that I had ordered, but the quality of the painting itself was appalling - runs, drips, chunks of dirt embedded in the paint. It was obvious that this was Colnago's little way of protesting that anyone would be arrogant enough to disrespect their typical OTT Italian-pastry livery.

Given the lengths you went to in order to create the colour for your F1 (and other McL's) have you ever had a bicycle painted in the same Blu Alfa colour? If so would you care to share any details, or an image?

Many decades ago I had a Dawes Galaxy (who didn't ) and used regularly to cycle far and wide. When it was stolen I began to create a spec for its replacement - somewhere I still have the type-written sheet with the size, geometry, and spec that I finally settled upon - I recall wanting it finished in Rothmans Blue, much like the Williams F1 of the period. Passing my driving test put paid to that plan but I still think about revisiting the idea.

I have never had a frame painted in that colour, because there have always been other colours that I preferred for bike frames. I chose that colour for the F1 and some others not because I was fixated on it in particular, but rather because I thought it worked best on that kind of sports car. I would actually prefer to find a different colour for the next car (whatever that is), but I'll just go by whatever I think would suit that car.
I have some bikes that I have had painted in homage to specific racing cars, including the '60s Honda Formula One cars and a couple of Flemke-type cars also from the 1960s.

[flemke]

Jacobyte said:

Sway said:

Ti is easy enough to anodised that most frame builders offer some really cool options.

I resisted on mine as one of the core appeals was an "undamagable" finish - one that I can easily at home refinish using nothing more than a scotchbrite.

I am very tempted to get Enigma to replace the sand blasted head tube logo with a bolted on anodised badge to match the very tosserish anodised Hope kit I've put on the bike... But then I have exceptionally limited taste!

Such things are so tempting. Then you look at higher and higher end stuff with beautiful attention to detail and workmanship in the flawless welds, etc, then realise you're into stratospheric costs just for the frame. It's a slippery slope

Positively teflon!

[flemke]

skidskid said:

flemke said:

I want to go back to Germany and its fantastic driving roads/environment; hope to do so this year.
The car I most miss driving is probably the Rocket, because it has been so many years since I was last in it. A friend has been looking after it for me and, although I saw it last year, I am waiting for it to be serviced.

Hi Flemke,

Which is your favourite area of Germany for driving / driving tours? I was planning to spend some time there this year but I'll play it safe and stick to home in Austria for now.

I've not been on the 'country roads' (as opposed to autobahns, dual carriageways and urban streets) in all parts of the country, but the area I know best - the triangle connecting Aachen, Koblenz and Luxembourg - has fantastic roads.
Also superb are the roads in the vicinity of Pfaffenhausen (where Ruf are located). When you drive out of Ruf's little parking lot, you go onto what in the UK would be a B-road. If you turn left, within half a mile you're on a big, sweeping right-hander with a long view where they test drive the cars at 200+ kph.

[flemke]

Sway said:

I'm pretty happy with mine (and it was surprisingly affordable thanks to the Cycle2Work scheme!):




I revel in the vulgarity of the orange...

Not many colours look right with silver, but orange is one of the few that can do.

[flemke]

S1KRR said:

I think we all know that Manthey have helped with the development of the F1. Have there been any other companies that you wish to mention that have been helpful / positive when modifying not just the F1, but any of your other cars? (Think we'll skip the less positive ones)


And on a different note.

You've spoken (if I'm not mis-remembering) about how you've been a little too free with the F1 keys in the past. There was a rumour a while back that Tiff Needell (now with LoveCars YouTube channel) was hoping to re-film the original road test he did with XP4 (IIRC Erik ) but in the current era. I cant think of anybody more qualified outside the factory to drive one. Assuming you don't want to lend him the keys for this. (Though IMO he's eminently less likely to damage it and far more sensible than Clarkson et al) It made me wonder if you've ever been interested or approached to do a sort of "Petrolicious" video of the car. Or does your desire to remain anonymous trump such ideas. (Should probably add I'm not touting for work here, I'm no videographer)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgyJPixJl95X1ut3E...

ps What did you do with the Colnago frame with the terrible finish?

Of the companies that have been involved in some way with the F1 project, off the top of my head I can think of more than two dozen. I think your question related more to people/companies that performed a professional consulting role, of which I think there were four, one each for suspension, set-up, brakes and wheels. Of them, one has retired, one asked me to keep his name quiet, one company has changed its ownership and identity, and one is in the US and not relevant to most readers of this forum. I think it probably best if I named no names (not to say that I would criticise any, because I would not - they were/are all the best at what they do).

I don't know what 'Petrolicious' is, but I don't think I need a published video of the car with or without me.

We sent the Colnago frame back to the factory with instructions to do it again, but properly. They returned it with an improved but still mediocre paint job, at which point I said 'The heck with it' and started riding it. I once spent a year corresponding with the (at least then-) best frame painter in the States, Joe Bell, in order to get a frame painted exactly as I wanted it. It came out great, but I'm not sure that I would want to go through that again.

[cc8s]

I believe you have said in the past that you have/had a 997 overhauled by Manthey. Have you had an opportunity to compare it to something similar by RUF? That would be a very interesting test!

[h0b0]

flemke said:

I once spent a year corresponding with the (at least then-) best frame painter in the States, Joe Bell, in order to get a frame painted exactly as I wanted it. It came out great, but I'm not sure that I would want to go through that again.

That’s why you don’t have time to drive the cars.

[flemke]

cc8s said:

I believe you have said in the past that you have/had a 997 overhauled by Manthey. Have you had an opportunity to compare it to something similar by RUF? That would be a very interesting test!

Yes and no. I have a lot of time for Alois and Estonia Ruf, who are super-nice people who will go out of their way to be helpful. A few years ago Alois sold a stake in Ruf to Genii Capital. I don't know whether he still owns part of the company; in case he does, I don't want to say anything critical about the company. Suffice to say that Ruf's expertise lies in turbo-charged engines and aesthetics, not in NA engines or in weight savings.
Olaf is exceptional. He has done a number of projects for me, including a couple of GT3s where the brief was, 'Do whatever you think you should do to make this car the best it can be'. One of them, a car I still have, Richard Meaden tested for a magazine and he later told me it was the best 911 he had ever driven.

Edited by flemke on Monday 13th July 16:41

[flemke]

h0b0 said:

flemke said:

I once spent a year corresponding with the (at least then-) best frame painter in the States, Joe Bell, in order to get a frame painted exactly as I wanted it. It came out great, but I'm not sure that I would want to go through that again.

That’s why you don’t have time to drive the cars.

Maybe, although this was years ago when I did have the time. The dilemma, at least for me, is that at the start of something you need to decide whether you are going to take it seriously. If you're not, there is no need to get too finicky; you do your best but if at first you don't get quite what you want you choose to live with it.
If however you're going to take it seriously, but at the same time you have to rely on other people for the consummation of the project, it takes so much time and effort to get them to do exactly what you want that it's almost like trying to put infinity in a bottle. The fact that I have been working on improving the F1 for seventeen years now is an example of what a slippery slope that can be!

[PushedDover]

CBA to start a new thread, so thought a drop in to the general fodder and melting pot of Mclaren content this thread reads likes:

I happened to just look at P1's then Senna's on PH classified.

Not one of the cars for sale has 1,000 miles on it.

I can not honestly imagine how dreary that must be to drop that much money on a car that is supposedly the pinnacle of driving and yet put less than 1,000miles on it in multi years. I know 'some are collectors' (note the so XP P1 for sale with 353 miles) and in another thread it was laughed at how those that own the cars and not use / put on any mileage have the last laugh as the prices soar, but the prices of these low miles Sennas seem to not be lifting.

Own a £1m car. Never use it. How did we get to this place ?

[TyrannosauRoss Lex]

PushedDover said:

CBA to start a new thread, so thought a drop in to the general fodder and melting pot of Mclaren content this thread reads likes:

I happened to just look at P1's then Senna's on PH classified.

Not one of the cars for sale has 1,000 miles on it.

I can not honestly imagine how dreary that must be to drop that much money on a car that is supposedly the pinnacle of driving and yet put less than 1,000miles on it in multi years. I know 'some are collectors' (note the so XP P1 for sale with 353 miles) and in another thread it was laughed at how those that own the cars and not use / put on any mileage have the last laugh as the prices soar, but the prices of these low miles Sennas seem to not be lifting.

Own a £1m car. Never use it. How did we get to this place ?

I think it's fairly obvious there are numerous possibilities how this may arise, even if we ignore the "investment" option. Let's say one drives to work Monday to Friday, maybe the odd Saturday. Spend other time with the family, holidays away etc, the time to actually use a £1m hypercar is probably very limited. Let's say these people get 1 weekend every 2 months where they may have a free day to enjoy a car for a few hours and do 200 miles. Let's then assume these people have 4 or 5 other super cars. Call it 5 others, so 6 in total. One use every 2 months for 200 miles would be using 1 car per year, 200 miles a pop. I think that's a very reasonable picture.

Then you have the situation like Flemke where the car wasn't legal in the country he expected to move to and thus sold before using it much etc.

[PushedDover]

I was only reading in another Mcl thread of someone using his 650 daily, and how he did a round trip of 700miles in comfort etc etc.

I just don't see it that even on arrival the Senna doesnt have an owner go and spank it a lot for the first 4-6 months as an object of affection. To go an hoon a hundred miles is nothing, never mind a run out to destination or similar for the sake of it.
I took my 911 to italy. Great fun. Went there stayed the night, watched an Opera in Verona, drove back the next day.

Thats ONE run out that has more miles than any of those Senna's. I think its speculators not owner drivers. And thats why the market is fked. a race to the bottom (as in lowest mileage) to try an create the optimum sale price over the next car.
Crackers. And surely leads to bigger problems of a car not being used, (see the thread of the guy looking to get in a Testarossa)

[Sway]

PushedDover said:

I was only reading in another Mcl thread of someone using his 650 daily, and how he did a round trip of 700miles in comfort etc etc.

I just don't see it that even on arrival the Senna doesnt have an owner go and spank it a lot for the first 4-6 months as an object of affection. To go an hoon a hundred miles is nothing, never mind a run out to destination or similar for the sake of it.
I took my 911 to italy. Great fun. Went there stayed the night, watched an Opera in Verona, drove back the next day.

Thats ONE run out that has more miles than any of those Senna's. I think its speculators not owner drivers. And thats why the market is fked. a race to the bottom (as in lowest mileage) to try an create the optimum sale price over the next car.
Crackers. And surely leads to bigger problems of a car not being used, (see the thread of the guy looking to get in a Testarossa)

Senna is perhaps a little different - it's first and foremost a track car, so the experience on a road trip may not be as good as say a "run of the mill" 650S or 720.

Almost certainly, a lot of Sennas were bought as investment pieces.

A "hoon" in these sorts of cars is a tricky thing, if you want to avoid losing license/jail.

[Petrus1983]

PushedDover said:

CBA to start a new thread, so thought a drop in to the general fodder and melting pot of Mclaren content this thread reads likes:

I happened to just look at P1's then Senna's on PH classified.

Not one of the cars for sale has 1,000 miles on it.

I can not honestly imagine how dreary that must be to drop that much money on a car that is supposedly the pinnacle of driving and yet put less than 1,000miles on it in multi years. I know 'some are collectors' (note the so XP P1 for sale with 353 miles) and in another thread it was laughed at how those that own the cars and not use / put on any mileage have the last laugh as the prices soar, but the prices of these low miles Sennas seem to not be lifting.

Own a £1m car. Never use it. How did we get to this place ?

I think it depends on a lot of things. I collect art to a small degree - I’d rather cars but art takes up a lot less space and causes far fewer problems. At any one time I’ll have around 25% of what I own on the wall. It would be nice to have more up, but unfeasible for one reason or another - it doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them, or not want to own them. As a result I know I have a range of Banksy’s, Hirsts, Basquiats etc that I know many people would have as pride of place in their homes, in storage. Whilst I don’t see them often I still enjoy knowing I have the option of hanging it up sometime.

[PushedDover]

Sway, all points acknowledged and agree with to the point.

Petrus - that is a good alternative viewpoint of course.
I see it slightly different withte Car, Senna in particular. It didnt 'win' in its mission and raison d'etre did it?
Invariably it will also be bettered in due course. Therefore is it really a 'collectors piece' ? Therefore, drive the blasted things ?

Where does the lack of use and resulting 'bad maintenance' over rule the 'keep miles off it because of perceived value.

Or - take to extremes and remove the fluids in the car, and the perishables?

[ArgonautX]

PushedDover said:

I see it slightly different withte Car, Senna in particular. It didnt 'win' in its mission and raison d'etre did it?

It sure did. McLaren sold 500 of them, car that is mostly based on existing hardware, only quite a bit more expensive - I'm sure margins on Senna were very healthy.

[cc8s]

flemke said:

cc8s said:

I believe you have said in the past that you have/had a 997 overhauled by Manthey. Have you had an opportunity to compare it to something similar by RUF? That would be a very interesting test!

Yes and no. I have a lot of time for Alois and Estonia Ruf, who are super-nice people who will go out of their way to be helpful. A few years ago Alois sold a stake in Ruf to Genii Capital. I don't know whether he still owns part of the company; in case he does, I don't want to say anything critical about the company. Suffice to say that Ruf's expertise lies in turbo-charged engines and aesthetics, not in NA engines or in weight savings.
Olaf is exceptional. He has done a number of projects for me, including a couple of GT3s where the brief was, 'Do whatever you think you should do to make this car the best it can be'. One of them, a car I still have, Richard Meaden tested for a magazine and he later told me it was the best 911 he had ever driven.

Edited by flemke on Monday 13th July 16:41

That is very interesting regarding RUF, reading between the lines.

I have to agree. I dropped by RUF last year and Alois was an absolute gentleman, greeting us as if we were good friends.

Regarding the Manthey GT3s, were they track/race cars or road cars? I may have asked that before but I don't recall the answer, if so.

[cc8s]

Petrus1983 said:

PushedDover said:

CBA to start a new thread, so thought a drop in to the general fodder and melting pot of Mclaren content this thread reads likes:

I happened to just look at P1's then Senna's on PH classified.

Not one of the cars for sale has 1,000 miles on it.

I can not honestly imagine how dreary that must be to drop that much money on a car that is supposedly the pinnacle of driving and yet put less than 1,000miles on it in multi years. I know 'some are collectors' (note the so XP P1 for sale with 353 miles) and in another thread it was laughed at how those that own the cars and not use / put on any mileage have the last laugh as the prices soar, but the prices of these low miles Sennas seem to not be lifting.

Own a £1m car. Never use it. How did we get to this place ?

I think it depends on a lot of things. I collect art to a small degree - I’d rather cars but art takes up a lot less space and causes far fewer problems. At any one time I’ll have around 25% of what I own on the wall. It would be nice to have more up, but unfeasible for one reason or another - it doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them, or not want to own them. As a result I know I have a range of Banksy’s, Hirsts, Basquiats etc that I know many people would have as pride of place in their homes, in storage. Whilst I don’t see them often I still enjoy knowing I have the option of hanging it up sometime.

Senna values are interesting. I gather that all depositors were locked in before the car was unveiled. And, as almost certainly discussed here, a number of people took exception to the looks and wanted to off-load the cars. A number did so at MSRP so as to not appear to be flippers, and retain their buying credibility with their dealership/the factory. This naturally depressed the market. This in a generally softening market at the time.

I do not understand, in that circumstance, knowing that a number of people will want to get in and out of the car with at least no loss, why they don't use them more. Where does the banding sit for drops in value? Surely a well-specced car would balance against marginally higher mileage car.