RE: Zenos E10R: Spotted

[IanJ9375]

996jim said:

It's a bitser, looks ugly, not that quick, companies gone bust. If they were any good people would have been lining-up to buy them, they didn't so bye bye Zenos. Pity the people/banks that invested in this company. As said before, if I had £30k burning a hole in my pocket I wouldn't buy this, much more around that makes more sense. If you want to put yur hard earned into this, then well done, but I stand-bye my original comment, it's crap.

What would you have bought with your 30k then?

[Sport220]

IanJ9375 said:

What would you have bought with your 30k then?

Mk7 R bruv

[996jim]

CABC said:

i think he wants volume and cruise control on the steering wheel.

350 hp & torque, engineering pedigree. 30k.... struggling.

Thinks you don't know me. None of those options on my Ducati or BMW S1000R. Although my BMW does have cruise control and heated grips, both have volume, but not on the steering wheel. I made a comment or comments about a car I really don't like, you've all made assumptions about me and none of you have ever met me.

[Jon_S_Rally]

996jim said:

Thinks you don't know me. None of those options on my Ducati or BMW S1000R. Although my BMW does have cruise control and heated grips, both have volume, but not on the steering wheel. I made a comment or comments about a car I really don't like, you've all made assumptions about me and none of you have ever met me.

Have you ever driven one? Sat in one? Seen one in the metal/plastic? Think it's a bit of a stretch to say a car is "crap" if you have no experience of it whatsoever. Yes you can criticise the looks, maybe even the business plan, but it's difficult to criticise a car without first-hand experience of it. I've been in one and it seemed ok and the people I know who have driven one rated it highly.

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996jim said:

It's a bitser,

guess you mean parts bin? so are many companies. but the entire chassis, carbon tub were all completely bespoke.
I'd rather a small volume manufacturer take components that are tried and tested to do the basic stuff and spend the money on the uniqueness.
the carbon tub is really really strong and I can't think of anything comparable at the price.

996jim said:

looks ugly,

Meh. eye of the beholder. I agree a few clumsy angles here and there but I wouldn't start a campaign against something just cause I didn't like how it looked. I've never had a bad reaction around town - in fact get more people coming up in the petrol station than any other previous unusual car I've had.

996jim said:

not that quick,

Oh come on... At least be a little serious here. Yes, I can see you are a biker so I guess you level "not that quick" at all cars.
It can comfortably hit a sub 3 second launch to 60 without any fancy driver aids, 100 isn't much more than 6 seconds. That is firmly in the land of the exotic there.
Yes it's a total bd to launch well as it's so light with so much torque (and inevitable turbo lag) that it's easy to spin the wheels well into higher gears. Standing starts in the R are traction limited affairs so can be variable, however get up to speed where it's less of a problem (but not completely gone) and it'll happily keep up with mclarens' and the like. Not bad for 30k.
Consider the unscientific benchmark that an E10S with 70% of the power and more weight than a R lapped the top gear track faster than an exige s. Not a bad benchmark to aim for considering over double the price. 500bhp+ / ton is not ever going to be slow.

996jim said:

companies gone bust.

Yup - no getting away from this, it is a natural worry but plenty of people spend more on cars that are from defunct manufacturers. At least I can go to my friendly ford dealer and after some explaining and complicated arm waving get pretty much any major component. there is an advantage to running a standard ford running gear setup.
The only (thin) hope is the AC cars really do carry out their plans to rebuild the marque. The E11 would be something I'd like to see in the flesh for sure.

996jim said:

If they were any good people would have been lining-up to buy them, they didn't so bye bye Zenos.

Please read previous posts as it's really not as simple as that. The order book was well stocked and over 100 cars delivered worldwide. Lack of customers was not the issue. The problem was more commercial than fundamentally a problem with the car. It doesn't matter how good a car is, if on a particular day you need to pay something and you can't because something unforeseen wiped out the cash in the bank account, then it's over.

996jim said:

Pity the people/banks that invested in this company.

Banks will always be fine - they don't need pity.
But a lot of suppliers and employees did lose out and that is a sad fact.

996jim said:

As said before, if I had £30k burning a hole in my pocket I wouldn't buy this, much more around that makes more sense. If you want to put your hard earned into this, then well done, but I stand-bye my original comment, it's crap.

After many cars of various degrees of exoticness I can honestly not think of anything that comes close for the original 40k let alone under 30k. Would happy to be corrected.

Yes I'm biased as I did put my hard earned money into it. But if I had perfect prescience knowledge of the future and how the company was going to turn out way back in 2015 do you know what? I wouldn't hesitate to do exactly the same again and I'd be doing it with a bloody great smile (same as the one every day I drive it).

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IanJ9375 said:

ads_green said:

The engine is based on the Lincoln (again subtly different to the mustang).
Yes the head is different but the engine used in the E10R is a custom built unit by Hendy with completely bespoke management setup.
It is not an off the shelf unit but to the lay person it makes sense to compare with the focus RS as it's the nearest comparable unit.

As I understand it, the main issue with the RS units that did fail was down to the fitment of the wrong head gasket. The faulty units had ones that looked identical but had a different part number and different characteristics.

Yes apparently the gasket manufacture might have (Allegedly) supplied 2 different gaskets using the same part number so no one knew what was fitted where.

If you've a link to the engine details I'd be interested to see what they've done, cheers

Sorry I don't - would love to find out more but all there is are the order codes on the engine.

[CABC]

ads_green said:

Yes I'm biased as I did put my hard earned money into it. But if I had perfect prescience knowledge of the future and how the company was going to turn out way back in 2015 do you know what? I wouldn't hesitate to do exactly the same again and I'd be doing it with a bloody great smile (same as the one every day I drive it).

i wouldn't be too bothered about it.
anything that's in anyway an outlier will attract negativity.

996jim, you took effort to enter a thread just to be critical and offered little to any discussion. (just the questionable mention of Caterham). we would know you better if you offered up your 30k alternatives.

full disclosure, i've never driven a Zenos or have any material interest. i'm sure glad they tried though.

[996jim]

IanJ9375 said:

What would you have bought with your 30k then?

To be honest a new Ducati Panigale, but if I wanted something like that, theres a couple of nice Atoms around that sort of money.

[996jim]

CABC said:

i wouldn't be too bothered about it.
anything that's in anyway an outlier will attract negativity.

996jim, you took effort to enter a thread just to be critical and offered little to any discussion. (just the questionable mention of Caterham). we would know you better if you offered up your 30k alternatives.

full disclosure, i've never driven a Zenos or have any material interest. i'm sure glad they tried though.

Well as I've stated, not really my thing, but there are some decent Atoms around at that money. Also, not much in that vein, Caterham, Westfield, Ariel, KTM, but not much else. So sorry if I've not mentioned that may be obvious.

[996jim]

Jon_S_Rally said:

Have you ever driven one? Sat in one? Seen one in the metal/plastic? Think it's a bit of a stretch to say a car is "crap" if you have no experience of it whatsoever. Yes you can criticise the looks, maybe even the business plan, but it's difficult to criticise a car without first-hand experience of it. I've been in one and it seemed ok and the people I know who have driven one rated it highly.

Yes I have and it's not for me.

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996jim said:

To be honest a new Ducati Panigale, but if I wanted something like that, theres a couple of nice Atoms around that sort of money.

I'm kinda with you on the Panigale - Although I think I'd buy it just to put in my front room and look at it rather than ride/crash/die on it
But hard comparing bikes to cars
Still prefer the stability of 4 wheels.

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996jim said:

Well as I've stated, not really my thing, but there are some decent Atoms around at that money. Also, not much in that vein, Caterham, Westfield, Ariel, KTM, but not much else. So sorry if I've not mentioned that may be obvious.

Caterham / Westfield done to death. Fun in their own way but kinda moved on from there and prefer mid mounted engine fun.
KTM isn't much fun to drive really - looks amazing but it's not really a practical road or track car.

I was totally underwhelmed by the atom though... The 2 was a sweetspot and just the right amount of power the chassis could deal with. the supercharger on the 3 ruined it for me. I just couldn't get on with it. The fishtailing in a straight line and the under to over to under steer on pushing into corners. It really didn't inspire any confidence to really push it... I simply wasn't sure what it was going to do next. I'm sure a suitable driving god would be able to hustle it round a track but I think simply the chasses was overwhelmed by the engine. I think it says a lot of chassis control and handling finesse where a heavier (612kg vs 714kg) and lower powered (330hp vs 270hp) Lotus 211 can post faster laptimes with the same driver (overall it's why I went for the 211 over the atom).

After the 211 I swore I'd never buy a screenless car again - it's just too much of a compromise for on the road. Then halfway through development, Zenos asked about if people would want a proper screen... And pretty much every one was sold with the screen. It's not a flimsy aeroscreen like a Caterham... It's a proper laminated glass unit (Pilkington I think) that is every bit as strong as an elise variant. Makes for a much better road car and four bolts and it's off for screenless fun

[RumbleOfThunder]

996jim said:

CABC said:

i wouldn't be too bothered about it.
anything that's in anyway an outlier will attract negativity.

996jim, you took effort to enter a thread just to be critical and offered little to any discussion. (just the questionable mention of Caterham). we would know you better if you offered up your 30k alternatives.

full disclosure, i've never driven a Zenos or have any material interest. i'm sure glad they tried though.

Well as I've stated, not really my thing, but there are some decent Atoms around at that money. Also, not much in that vein, Caterham, Westfield, Ariel, KTM, but not much else. So sorry if I've not mentioned that may be obvious.

In what way is an Atom superior?? I think you were uninformed, showed a bit of ignorance and should just admit that now instead of digging your heels in. A car company going bust does not necessarily mean the product is bad.

[soad]

Can you still get parts? Not so much the mechanical side, but bodywork (in case of damage).

[Luke.]

This seems silly cheap at <£17K...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

There's two too...

[gazzathehutt]

soad said:

Can you still get parts? Not so much the mechanical side, but bodywork (in case of damage).

Yes. Most of the mechanical bits are easily available (engine and transmission from Ford, front brake disks were from a Volvo S60, rear brake disks from a City Transit(!) etc etc. A couple of existing owners have had incidents and body panels have been found from the stock that existed when Zenos wenet into administration. AC cars, which bought the assets from the administrator says that it intends to restart production soon (early 2019 was claimed) which will bring new parts back to the market.

Edited by gazzathehutt on Thursday 31st January 11:16

Edited by gazzathehutt on Thursday 31st January 11:16

[gazzathehutt]

Luke. said:

This seems silly cheap at <£17K...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

There's two too...

Agreed. I think these were originally destined for China (the red bodywork was appealing in that market apparently), which is why they are not UK road legal. If anyone is interested in one of these I would recommend a chat with one of the Zenos specialists to find out what it would take to make them road legal here.

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gazzathehutt said:

Agreed. I think these were originally destined for China (the red bodywork was appealing in that market apparently), which is why they are not UK road legal. If anyone is interested in one of these I would recommend a chat with one of the Zenos specialists to find out what it would take to make them road legal here.

I don't think there is any reason they are not road legal other than actually putting them through the SVA process.

[Luke.]

ads_green said:

I don't think there is any reason they are not road legal other than actually putting them through the SVA process.

Amazed they've not sold.

[shantybeater]

gazzathehutt said:

Agreed. I think these were originally destined for China (the red bodywork was appealing in that market apparently), which is why they are not UK road legal. If anyone is interested in one of these I would recommend a chat with one of the Zenos specialists to find out what it would take to make them road legal here.

I'm curious, any suggestions on who to speak to?