Talacrest the king of Ferrari sales?

[richardmeaks]

Could Talacrest/John Collins be the most profitable independent Ferrari dealer in terms of low volume/high value sales?

Lots of what they advertise seems to sell incredibly quick - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Talacrest and isn't just all publicity - just look at the numbers http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03861391/TALACRE...

If only I had the purchasing power to buy something from their stocks..

[GSP]

His postcode on companycheck is Chris Evans house... What's the deal there? Silent business partners, or just a coincidence. Would explain the cash availability

[rubystone]

One story had it that Evans was trading himself with one (?) ex Ferrari industry guy from his premises in Ascot... Recently someone told me he and Collins had bought the house between theirs and we're going to trade from there...so maybe somewhere in those two stories is the truth? I am sure someone on this forum will know...

[Streetrod]

The first bidder at the recent RM Auction on the Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider was Jon Collins. He bid $16 million. Now I'm not sure if he was working on behalf of a client or buying for stock but he also managed to buy a couple of other high value Ferraris at the sale that were for stock.

He has been around long enough to be able to buy whatever he seems to want

[F355GTS]

I believe Chris Evans bought the house from Jon Collins some years back. They are clearly close in someway, the car Chris arrived in at the Supercar Event was one he was 'looking after' for Jon Collins

[camshafted]

He's clearly very good at what he does. What's also interesting about John Collins is that before he was selling cars he was taking photos. In Beirut among places! Legend has it he was a photojournalist at The Express, starting off as a tea boy in Glasgee. Not many supercar dealers can say that.

Edited by camshafted on Wednesday 28th August 21:51

[DeltaOne]

Think DK do more than their fair share too, albeit without some of the fanfare and self publicity of Talacrest/Collins. Between them they have some outstanding cars....

[Petrus1983]

My father bought through them a couple of years ago, they didn't shift a penny on the price (not that they should) but the whole experience was faultless, I totally understand why they have a repeat client base. Ironically the car my father bought was an ex-Chris Evans car.

[MRPULLHARD]

didnt talacrest disappear for quite a few years ? they used to have showrooms and that. They suddenly reappeared in car magazines a few years ago . Wonder what happened ?

[MantaMike]

They used to have a showroom in Egham opposite the station, it has now been redeveloped into flats. I regularly used to drool through the window on my lunchbreak, I remember at one point they had a white Porsche 911 GT1 in there!

[MrReg]

MRPULLHARD said:

didnt talacrest disappear for quite a few years ? they used to have showrooms and that. They suddenly reappeared in car magazines a few years ago . Wonder what happened ?

He left selling cars when he sold up in Egham to selling vintage guitars or similar iirc.
Then all of a sudden he came back to selling Ferraris. From reading his facebook posts he sold two Ferraris to the underbidders at the recent auction instead of shipping them back to the UK - nice earner for very little effort on those!

[Elex]

How John Collins got started. Telegraph Video. Click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/motoring/clas...

[328matt]

I bought my 328 from talacrest back in 2003. Never saw mr collins....dealt with a guy called guy tedder. All the stock was regular ferraris from a 575 to a couple of bb512i's at the back. Oh and an ex sultan of brunei diablo. There was a fault on the car which they paid a local specialist to repair...i think going back further he had more of the esoteric stuff..maybe late nineties. He seems able to read the market really well.

[pattyg]

Was Collins not the expert that Evans had a go at for not realising until after he'd bought it that the ex Coburn car did not have its original engine?

[Council Baby]

I used to regularly wander around their show room in Egham after college drooling, always had some amazing metal there to see, were very friendly as well.

[Elex]

pattyg said:

Was Collins not the expert that Evans had a go at for not realising until after he'd bought it that the ex Coburn car did not have its original engine?

He was told during the bidding of the auction that the car did not have its original engine by the Ferrari Historian/Expert, Marcel Massini. On being told this he replied that he didn't care. However, it has been reported that the car had sold the day before to Evans but the show of the public auction for the car had to go ahead because it was the 'Headline' car. If this was the case Marcel Massini's information would have been too late. Another person said that everybody knew at the auction that the car did not have its original engine.

Edited by Elex on Thursday 29th August 14:14

[rossb]

A few facts:

John used to own the house that Chris bought in Ascot
John put the white collection together for Chris and has sold him a number of cars
John and Chris are good friends but Chris has no financial nor any other involvement with Talacrest

[DB89]

MantaMike said:

They used to have a showroom in Egham opposite the station, it has now been redeveloped into flats. I regularly used to drool through the window on my lunchbreak, I remember at one point they had a white Porsche 911 GT1 in there!

I was coming down Egham Hill one day, when this GT1 came off the roundabout and left a huge number 11 past Maranello Sales. Taking a good guess at where it had come from I headed to Talacrest where it sat cooling with all the panels opened up. Very memorable moment.

[Yoram Shazbat]

richardmeaks said:

Could Talacrest/John Collins be the most profitable independent Ferrari dealer in terms of low volume/high value sales?

In a word ... no.

[F355GTS]

DB89 said:

MantaMike said:

They used to have a showroom in Egham opposite the station, it has now been redeveloped into flats. I regularly used to drool through the window on my lunchbreak, I remember at one point they had a white Porsche 911 GT1 in there!

I was coming down Egham Hill one day, when this GT1 came off the roundabout and left a huge number 11 past Maranello Sales. Taking a good guess at where it had come from I headed to Talacrest where it sat cooling with all the panels opened up. Very memorable moment.

I remember the GT1 in there too

They used to service my 1st 328GTS and I nearly bought a 355GTS from Guy Tedder/ Mike Wheeler, met John Collins briefly on one occasion. I think I'm right that he sold a significant share to Symbolic in California and he then (as previously mentioned) got into the Guitar/ pop memorabilia market) it didn't work out for Symbolic and he subsequently bought the business back