Monday 24th June 2002
Spotted
FBS Census spotted with 'interesting' paint scheme
Discussion
OK, so I must admit the paint job is an acquired taste, but you should not knock it until you have tried it. At the risk of getting myself torn apart here, I test drove the beast in question, and thought it was a fun car. The handling seemed (to me, a novice) good, and the acceleration, whilst not "urgent" was quick and impressive.
It all depends what you are looking for in a car, and what your budget is. I am considering this as an alternative to spending lots of cash on a Jensen. OK, so I might not be the most experienced of drivers, but I could see me having many hours of fun in something like this.
Just my 2c worth!
It all depends what you are looking for in a car, and what your budget is. I am considering this as an alternative to spending lots of cash on a Jensen. OK, so I might not be the most experienced of drivers, but I could see me having many hours of fun in something like this.
Just my 2c worth!
When I was a child I had a storybook about a caterpillar which was big and fat and ugly - I am sure it was a very effective caterpillar and good at leaf munching, but it was not pleasant to look at. At the end of the book It turned into a beautiful butterfly by shedding the nasty cocoon to reveal lovely plumage.....I hope this will happen to FBS
Queue the chap from FBS telling us that some people like something different - trouble is this thing looks like it was dreamed up by the fisher price development dept. I appreciate that is is meant to be a superb drivers car, but it really is plug ugly please consider giving it a re-skin if it goes as well as it is meant to then you'll sell loads of them - even consider buying the design off strathcarron and using their moulds untill you can get a decent design together - then PH readers will collude with you in the pretence that this thing was a mule and never really destined for production, please, please....
Queue the chap from FBS telling us that some people like something different - trouble is this thing looks like it was dreamed up by the fisher price development dept. I appreciate that is is meant to be a superb drivers car, but it really is plug ugly please consider giving it a re-skin if it goes as well as it is meant to then you'll sell loads of them - even consider buying the design off strathcarron and using their moulds untill you can get a decent design together - then PH readers will collude with you in the pretence that this thing was a mule and never really destined for production, please, please....
OK, I'll stop beating around the bush now. I've couched my concerns in some woolly words until now because I've met you guys and I want your project to work.
I've driven the car and I was mightily impressed with it. Dynamically it is very accomplished and was a lot of fun to drive. It's also very competitively priced.
From a business perspective I'm also extremely impressed. For two engineers to realise a dream like this and produce a car that can compare with the established names in the industry without just going down the 7 replica route is also great. To do it on less than £500,000 is to be applauded.
However, to make back the £500,000 you need to be selling dozens of cars each year, probably 50+ per year over the next few years?
The fact is that you aren't going to succeed like this. 3 cars sold despite all the publicity you've had in the last 12 months? That's not a good hit rate.
Looks sell cars and good dynamics help. It doesn't work the other way around.
Please, please, take note of the feedback you've had here. I know PH readers are a harsh bunch but amongst the more flippant remarks are many, many comments from a broad range of enthusiasts and experienced business people, all urging the same thing - rethink. You are flying in the face of public opinion and the wind isn't going to change.
Get a new body on it before it's too late or FBS will become another curiosity in the history of British sportscars. Ignore this at your peril. The cost of changing the design may be seen as prohibative but the ultimate price you may pay will be the demise of your dream and a depressing return to 9-5 work for other people.
I've driven the car and I was mightily impressed with it. Dynamically it is very accomplished and was a lot of fun to drive. It's also very competitively priced.
From a business perspective I'm also extremely impressed. For two engineers to realise a dream like this and produce a car that can compare with the established names in the industry without just going down the 7 replica route is also great. To do it on less than £500,000 is to be applauded.
However, to make back the £500,000 you need to be selling dozens of cars each year, probably 50+ per year over the next few years?
The fact is that you aren't going to succeed like this. 3 cars sold despite all the publicity you've had in the last 12 months? That's not a good hit rate.
Looks sell cars and good dynamics help. It doesn't work the other way around.
Please, please, take note of the feedback you've had here. I know PH readers are a harsh bunch but amongst the more flippant remarks are many, many comments from a broad range of enthusiasts and experienced business people, all urging the same thing - rethink. You are flying in the face of public opinion and the wind isn't going to change.
Get a new body on it before it's too late or FBS will become another curiosity in the history of British sportscars. Ignore this at your peril. The cost of changing the design may be seen as prohibative but the ultimate price you may pay will be the demise of your dream and a depressing return to 9-5 work for other people.
I've got to concur with what has been said here. All credit is due to these guys for creating what is by all accounts a great little driver's car. However, with its current looks its not a winner. To press ahead with the project in this state would make as much sense as pissing into the wind. I really hope FBS will turn things around and hopefully deliver more and more cars in the future.
I remember looking at the clay scale models of the FBS and thinking, "that's not a bad looking car"... the final car has all the same shapes andcurves, but none of the dimensions seemed to stay the same. The top ends abruptly near the end, not unlike a volkwagen cabrio, with little deck, so maybe there shouldn't be one at all! the front is wide and low, but this is a narrow and tall car as far as I can see... there are lots of good details here, and as I've heard its an excellent drive, I can only beg FBS, for the good of the British small-manufacturing industry, that the car immediately be restyled dramatically. the concave sides are the most atrocious bit, making the car even more narrow looking.. honestly, given the long-hood, short-tail apparent dimensions, something closer to the way an M-coupe is shaped would be more appropriate. please.
Hello all,
Thanks for the considered comments, keep them coming everyone.
OK, based on a few photo's, lots of PH readers have written off the Census and I accept that. Some people really like the Census though very few of them read PH! Three people have liked it enough to actually hand over cash which as Ted says is less than we would like but it’s early days and we never made the ridiculous volume predictions a lot of start ups make. Some of them have yet to deliver anything despite massive amounts more of both time and money than us.
If any of the styling experts out there wants to put in a couple of hundred grand and wait a couple of years, we will put it onto the Census platform for you.
I do get annoyed about a couple of things:
1. Comparing road cars like Census with track cars (Radical, etc.) which can notionally be used on the road. Track cars are, in comparison to a proper road car, very easy to engineer because they are so limited in their design aims. All good luck to these projects but they are something different.
2. Strathcarron. FBS may have chosen an unpopular style but that pales into significance next to Strathcarron who never had a viable product, whatever it looked like. For a start, whatever was said in the media about rule changes, the engine concept was never legal for emissions nor was it ever going to be at the volumes they talked about. The car had no roof, doors or interior so there were massive compromises there. Choosing motor sport suppliers to make parts for a road car to be produced in hundreds per year (this was the original pitch in the media) must have done terrible things to their piece price and hence possible commercial viability . For reasons of geographical convenience to the founders, we are located in the middle of the motor sport industry but we get nothing made around here because of the prices motor sport suppliers expect to charge (also, they have a frustrating tendency to try to tell you how to redesign your road car to be like a race car). Finally, I have met two people who have driven a Strathcarron and both were deeply under whelmed by the experience. One, a very experienced dealer who knows how sports car buyers think, said the Strathcarron wasn’t very good but that people would be gullible enough to buy it because of the names bandied around in connection with the car whether it was good bad or indifferent.
thanks again, this fun (mostly!)
Joe90
Thanks for the considered comments, keep them coming everyone.
OK, based on a few photo's, lots of PH readers have written off the Census and I accept that. Some people really like the Census though very few of them read PH! Three people have liked it enough to actually hand over cash which as Ted says is less than we would like but it’s early days and we never made the ridiculous volume predictions a lot of start ups make. Some of them have yet to deliver anything despite massive amounts more of both time and money than us.
If any of the styling experts out there wants to put in a couple of hundred grand and wait a couple of years, we will put it onto the Census platform for you.
I do get annoyed about a couple of things:
1. Comparing road cars like Census with track cars (Radical, etc.) which can notionally be used on the road. Track cars are, in comparison to a proper road car, very easy to engineer because they are so limited in their design aims. All good luck to these projects but they are something different.
2. Strathcarron. FBS may have chosen an unpopular style but that pales into significance next to Strathcarron who never had a viable product, whatever it looked like. For a start, whatever was said in the media about rule changes, the engine concept was never legal for emissions nor was it ever going to be at the volumes they talked about. The car had no roof, doors or interior so there were massive compromises there. Choosing motor sport suppliers to make parts for a road car to be produced in hundreds per year (this was the original pitch in the media) must have done terrible things to their piece price and hence possible commercial viability . For reasons of geographical convenience to the founders, we are located in the middle of the motor sport industry but we get nothing made around here because of the prices motor sport suppliers expect to charge (also, they have a frustrating tendency to try to tell you how to redesign your road car to be like a race car). Finally, I have met two people who have driven a Strathcarron and both were deeply under whelmed by the experience. One, a very experienced dealer who knows how sports car buyers think, said the Strathcarron wasn’t very good but that people would be gullible enough to buy it because of the names bandied around in connection with the car whether it was good bad or indifferent.
thanks again, this fun (mostly!)
Joe90
Only found out today that this thread was about FBS.
Haddenham is where I live (one of the drags with my job is that I have to drive a Census all the time on durability testing!) although that is not my house in the picture.
This car was originallly metallic navy blue (as seen on TV, PH, etc.) but lots of PH type people told us that sports cars should have wacky colour achemes (and bright metal interiors which we have also added to the option list) so we dug out this which is the colours used by the stylist on his original sketches. Not how I would have car either but we like to respond to comments (which always generates more comments so it's fun trying lots of people's suggestions).
Buyers can have pretty much any interior and exterior colour scheme they want. Is anyone else this flexible at this price?
Haddenham is where I live (one of the drags with my job is that I have to drive a Census all the time on durability testing!) although that is not my house in the picture.
This car was originallly metallic navy blue (as seen on TV, PH, etc.) but lots of PH type people told us that sports cars should have wacky colour achemes (and bright metal interiors which we have also added to the option list) so we dug out this which is the colours used by the stylist on his original sketches. Not how I would have car either but we like to respond to comments (which always generates more comments so it's fun trying lots of people's suggestions).
Buyers can have pretty much any interior and exterior colour scheme they want. Is anyone else this flexible at this price?
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