Dear Santa...

I've been a really good boy this year. I didn't go bust and let all my members down, I didn't fire any staff and I didn't break any speed limits. (Well, maybe just the odd one or two but that was overseas so it doesn't count does it?)

So, hopefully you'll let me have a few nice toys for 2010. Here's my wish list:

First through the door, hopefully in March would be a Maserati GranCabrio (if it comes with Jodie Kidd too that would be just loverly.)

Shortly after, the Audi R8 V10 Spyder would be nice

Of course the Italia 458 is the one I really want the most, (and on time please in June)

and if its not asking too much, the new Gullwing, pretty please?

[P.S. Don't get me wrong I totally love the McLaren MP4 12C but, contrary to claims that other supercar clubs make about getting this car in 2010, this car won't be launched till 2011 so I'll put it on my list next year.]

Oh, and as a big thank you to all e25 members for supporting the club through this most difficult year, I would appreciate if you could make sure that they each get one of our new 2010 Calendars.

Hohoho. See you all in 2010.

To be or not to be

The "shall I, shan't I?" debate is back on PH with all sorts of interesting economics being used to compare the cost of ownership of a supercar with the cost of being a member of a supercar club.

The Vehicle Owner's Plan, of course blends the best of both arguments. Allowing owners to subsidise the cost of a car that they don't use everyday, and still enjoy being a member of the club.

Of course there are several non-economic reasons for joining the club as well, such as:
-the VARIETY
-access to cars that are still not available to 'ordinary punters'
-avoiding the hassle of ownership
-participating in cool social events and
-meeting other members with shared interests

At least people are debating joining again which is nice to see.

Christmas Ball at Hurlingham

Feeling a bit rough this morning. Despite a handful of last minute drop outs due to illness and inclement weather, the event was well attended with over 60 people. Not bad considering it was our first ever event exclusively for members and their guests.

We handed out the calendar of events for next year, which was really well received, and everything went well.

Definitely a permanent addition to the e25 calendar.

e25 Motorsport

Following the success of our inaugural track event in September, I am delighted to announce our plans for "e25 Motorsport" in 2010.

We have signed up an exclusive partnership with RMA that will allow e25 members the chance to participate in upto 5 organised track days, and a further 5 dates where "arrive and drive" options will be available at discounted rates.

In the new year I will focus on putting together a compelling fleet of track cars for members to be able to book for these or other track day events - as you can imagine, I have already been offered several cars such as an Atom, Boxster Cup, Westfield etc. under the VOP programme, and my plan is to pilot the Syndicate membership scheme to acquire our first e25 branded car.

The organised events are for 10 people sharing 5 cars:
30th March Snetterton
12th May Oulton Park International
26th May Silverstone GP
8th July Brands Hatch GP
3rd August Silverstone GP

and for the arrive and drive, just book your slot and either bring your own car or book one of our specialist track cars:
14th April Silverstone GP
23rd June Silverstone Southern
7th September Snetterton
21st September Silverstone GP
14th October Silverstone National

Lambo London Party

I was at HROwen's Lamborghini London Party last night. It was my first visit to the new Taman Gang nightclub on Park Lane that opened last year which was OK, but in a city with over 1000 clubs I'm not sure it was anything to write home about.

As for the Lambo's, there was nothing new or exciting to report either.

Of course, with the cars on the street, and us downstairs in the club, it kind of didn't really make sense as a Lambo event. We ended up heading down to the Dorchester for some bubbly so as not to have wasted a 'babysitter night' so to speak.

Batmobile in the national press

The wrapping of our F430 made headline news in the Daily Telegraph yesterday:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/6693323/A-new-car-for-1400.html

On a seperate note, does anyone know a company that does competitive personal car insurance for Left hand drive sports cars. I have a member who wants to get his German 997 Turbo insured over here. Cheers

Members Photo Gallery

This is now live - you have to be a member to upload photos, and to email other members who have uploaded photos - but the gallery itself will be available on the main website for anyone to see.
Kudos to Paul Williams for breaking the ice and uploading the first pictures - pretty good ones too. (Here's one of the LP560 outside his house).

We have been doing some member feedback over the last few months, and overwhelmingly people are really pleased with how we have made improvements to the club offer over the last year (rallys, track days, new branches etc) but the one area where we still need to do more is with "member interaction" - members want us to behave more like a "club" creating more opportunities to interact with other members, to make new friends and shares experiences.

So this is the first in a series of steps to improve that.

Other plans include more members-only initiatives such as setting up an e25 Group on LinkedIn, and starting in the New Year will be "Orange Wednesdays" where members can pop down on the last Wednesday of the month for free drinks at the Embassy Club, meet other members and see the latest car. Details to follow in the new year but for now, don't forget our members-only Xmas Ball at the Hurlingham Club on Dec 16th - tickets are £90/head.

New California

Our 'original' California arrived today - only 5 months late!

Thank God I went out and bought the Azzure one in July otherwise it would have been a disaster not having one for the Summer - I think one of the main reasons for joining a supercar club is having access to the latest models. (According to their website GP1 members are still waiting for their first one!)

Anyway, the blue one, as seen here is now for sale. Do let me know if you are interested in buying it - preferential terms are available to anyone wanting to keep it in the fleet under the Vehicle Owner's Plan - and it's quite a good investment too, if you had owned it from new we would have paid you £20,000 for this car to date.

Batmobile 2

Given my penchant for Batmobiles I have just been offered this beauty for our vehicle owner's programme, now all I need is to find some water to put it in.

Full article available here

Barca Rally Part 3 of 3

Road Rallys have been the outstanding discovery of the year - whether it is the chance to drive upto 8 cars on 1 weekend, or the social networking opportunities, or just a chance to get away from the screaming kids for a few days (that's definitely my reason!) - people just love them.

Both of our trial events were sold out for this year so I am posting the dates of next year's rallys now. Full details will be on the website in January, but the for the super-organised amongst you, or in case you need an idea for an (expensive) Xmas present, here are the plans:

March 6-8 Leeds to Lake District - complete with accommodation in a castle, helicopters and Land Rover Off-Roading experience. This event is 'with partners' and is limited to 8 couples.

Sept 11-13 London to Nurburgring - repeat of this year's trip (viewable here), with a few surprises thrown in to keep it fresh. 14 places

Oct 22-24 Barcelona to Marbella - stretch your Summer with a few days in sunny Spain complete with paella, boats and Ascari, 8 places

Tesla on PH

Read Beefmeister's PistonHeads review on the Tesla here

I thoroughly agree with his comments and for someone considering buying one his final statement is bang on - "too many compromises in a fancy frock". The only way it would make commercial sense was if you supplied it to a car club to subsidise the cost of ownership!

Talking of which, we have had so much success with our Vehicle Owner's Plan (VOP) that I am confidently predicting that vehicle availability will be a thing of the past come next Summer...I'll blog more about this next month.

Another members' freebie

Last night we were supporting the launch of the Embassy Club's new VIP Onyx card.

It has been a long time since I was last there and I think the direction they are taking the club is quite cool.

It may well be worthwhile sorting out a corporate arrangement with them whereby members get complimentary access and discounts off food and drink.

Tesla teething troubles

Living with an electric car on the fleet presents a few unforeseen challenges - most notably that the car needs charging for 7 hours between bookings which can be a bit tricky if it is brought back 'empty'.

But my greatest surprise is how little interest there has been for this car. Bear in mind, our car is not only the first customer Tesla in the UK, the first manufacturer-built electric supercar in the UK and it's faster than a F430 - I would have thought members would be queueing up to take it out for a spin.

Obviously it can't go much more than 150 miles on a single charge but then only a few of our other cars did more mileage than that this last weekend, so what's not to like?

Any suggestions or clues gratefully received.

MPH show

Just finished off at MPH this weekend. Compared to last year the show was fantastic - interest levels are definitely up and you can tell that people are wondering "how to spend it" and not simply "when to spend it".

For me the highlight of the show was the Citroen 'Playstation' car* - it says a lot about the power of video games when a manufacturer can spend over $1 million making a prototype of a car that was fictitiously created for Playstation.

If they ever made the thing, it would be awesome.

A quick plug: went to the newly opened Kitchen W8 in Kensington last week - owned by 2 Michelin starred chef Philip Howard -the food was of Michelin quality at Chez Gerrard prices. I put it in my top 3 restaurants in London.

Here's a not very good photo of the outside with Mrs Shah waiting for a cab.

*photo courtesy of another website

Batmobile

Regular readers will remember we wrapped "LK55" last month. Members totally dig the new look and she has been loving renamed the Batmobile. Her first guest appearance will be on the main stand at MPH in Earls' Court this weekend.

Of course, we have a stand there too, right by the main entrance so if you are planning to attend, please do pop by and see us.

And don't forget we have complimentary tickets for any members wishing to attend the pre-MPH party at Aura tonight.

You can see the making of the Batmobile on YouTube here.

Strength to strength

Leeds just keeps going from strength to strength.

This month they have brought in 2 new cars - a Vantage Roadster and a brand new LP560-4 Spyder.

I'm sure by now all e25 members appreciate that they can drive any of the cars from any of the branches, but the really cool part of the e25 concept is that we rotate the cars around so the Lambo will be with Londoners too in January and February.

In the doghouse

I've come in for a bit of stick on Pistonheads for my last post. To be honest, I think it's quite fair, reading it now it is a bit obtuse. Apologies to Michael et al. I must have been having an off day when I wrote it.

After so much discussion this year, I still find it amazing that people cannot understand the key reasons why cars clubs have historically failed - two reasons:

1) The old P1-style points system is not profitable and
2) If you cannot retain members, then the cost of customer acquisition is too high to make the club work, ie it costs more to recruit members than the profit that you earn in their membership. Most clubs suffer from low retention because people get bored with just driving the cars and want more social interaction - ie to be part of a club, not glorified car rental.

If you are lucky enough to have your own supercar, you can still join e25 and as well as driving other cars, you can earn an income from your own car when you are not using it - ie, really sharing the cars and sharing the experiences, isn't that what a club is all about?

For a fuller explanation, visit my post from May 5

Maybe another e25 branch

Big news!!! Dan and I were down in......

leafy Surrey...

last Thursday taking a look at some premises for a new branch. It does not take long to realise why this is arguably the most lucrative location for a supercar club anywhere in the world - million pound houses on every street and great driving roads.

The picture attached shows the location we most liked the look of; obviously it doesn't look like much at the moment but it's amazing what a splash of black and orange paint can do.

I can't say where it is exactly since negotiations are still on-going but hopefully e25 Surrey will be up and running in the Spring.

We also took the opportunity to "mystery shop" P1 - not so much mystery since they know Dan and I but we thought we would pop in unannounced to see what the latest is - in short, they have a small warehouse in the grottiest part of Epsom (Longmead Industrial Estate) which is principally full of Michael Breen's personal collection of old cars. We saw about 20 really nice classics, but in terms of supercars only an F430 and an R8. I think he might be better off re-opening as a Classic Car Club instead - oh how the mighty have fallen.

Barca Rally Part 2 of 3

No the limo in the picture is not on the Gentlemen Drive supercar fleet but Oriol and Daniel (shown in the picture) thought it would be a nice touch to arrange a limo to take us from our hotel to the footie match in Valencia.

They are 2 of 3 brothers who own and operate Gentlemen Drive , a supercar club based in Barcelona with a branch in Madrid and soon to be opened in Miami.

Aside from the supercars, their father also owns a fleet of classic cars that makes the Classic Car Club fleet look pathetic - including a 1930's Bugatti that must be worth over £1m alone, and a car from 1903 which still runs. They even had my favourite classic the Jaguar XK150.

We have been in talks with the guys for some time and to a large degree this mini-rally was a pilot collaboration to test out how well we work together in terms of club ethos and business philosophy; the idea being that if we can build a good working relationship then we could do more shared events, and maybe one day even allow members to use cars from each other's clubs; that is easier said than done since membership qualification criteria, points systems, vehicle groups, and insurance excesses are all different, but let's see where we get to.

Barca Road Rally Part 1 of 3

Just got back last night from our second rally of the year - this time in sunny Spain...

I've got so much to say about this trip that I am going to blog in 3 parts - the trip, the supercar club that we partnered with and plans for future rallies next year.

Many of you may not have heard all about this rally. It was organised at short notice, based on the success of the now legendary 'Ring Rally, and on a limited scale in trial partnership with another supercar club based in Spain called Gentlemen Drive. Since there were only 10 places on the trip, e25 only had 5 of them and these were snapped up pretty quickly.

Overall the trip was the perfect way to sneak a few more days out of Summer; its hard to imagine we packed so much into only 3 days. Highlights included: Driving a 599, Paella in the traditional Valencia-style, driving round the F1 track, Barca-Valencia football match, 26 degrees!, seeing the private Classic Car collection of the Vilanova's and of course the Tapas!

I really like these rallies - they are the perfect way to enjoy driving the supercars with like-minded people who share the same passion - it's easy to forget that it's actually my job!

Donuts

Despite not allowing members to do doughnuts in our cars, I am delighted to see Krispy Kreme have recognised the supremacy of the ecurie25 Supercar Club by creating an orange and black donut in our honour.

Thanks to Jackie who spotted this delight and decided to buy a 12-pack box for us to devour yesterday.

OK so I'm being a bit whimsical but wouldn't you be if you were off to Barcelona for the ultimate Boys Weekend - supercar rally, Valencia vs. Barcelona football, trackday and obligatory nights out on the town -viva l'Espana.

Makeover

Changing Rooms, Grand Designs, Nip and Tuck, 1o Years Younger....everyone is into makeovers these days so we thought we would get in on the act.

Witness our beloved "LK55" - with almost 40,000 miles on the clock she has served us well but instead of retiring her we have decided to give her a facelift with a splash of Botox for good measure.

She is being wrapped in Matt Black, (popularised by our sister company, Quadriga) and having a few other bits of trim added and our plan is to keep her as a back up car. In future instead of letting a member down if a problem develops on a car they have booked we can offer them a supercool looking F430 Spider as an alternative, and when the car is not needed we can stick Orange e25 stickers all over it and draw the crowds at Marketing events.

It will also be interesting to see how much demand there is for Matt Black - it will not be listed on the booking sheet but let us know if you want her.

Thanks to Creative FX for wielding the scalpel.

Photogenic - NOT!

The Panamera has to be the least photogenic car in the world. Every picture I have seen of it looks dreadful - I know its a cliche but it does just simply look like a squashed Cayenne!

Having said that, at our recent Brands Hatch trackday I saw one in the flesh and to be honest it looked quite nice. I had in fact taken the Quattroporte down with me so I took the opportunity to line the two up side-by-side for a comparison since that is the car it would be replacing if we got one.

It's certainly very imposing, but the Quattro still looks so much classier. Let me know if you feel differently.

PS You can clearly tell that I am not the guy who does the photography for our website!

More new cars

At our open evening last week we showcased 2 more additions to the fleet - the return of the ever popular GT3 and the first UK Tesla to be sold to a customer - any Tesla you have seen so far has been a press car or demonstrator; this one you can have for the week - but don't expect any help if you run out of juice halfway down the A23.

The other car that should be on its way but we could not get sorted in time for the Open Evening is a 599.

We are now miles ahead of any other club in terms of our current range of models and our share of the latest new cars for 2009.

And if that was not enough, sales at Leeds are going so well that they have just put down a deposit on an LP560-4 Spyder (ETA mid October). This is a double-whammy because apart from adding another car to the selection, it means London members will effectively gain another e0 car - from now on when an e0 car leaves London on rotation to Leeds, their Spyder will come back the other way. If they don't already hopefully London members will start to see the benefits of the broader branch network.

Everyone's a winner at e25.

e25 Track Club

Yesterday was our inaugural track club event. It didn't quite go perfectly to plan after a supposedly very reputable track day contractor let us down in a big way failing to book our slots at Silverstone, but at the eleventh hour Joss managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and get us a drive at Brands Hatch instead and with a neat selection of replacement cars (although sadly no 2-11).

Under the circumstances the day was still enjoyed by all, and frustratingly for me was in fact over-subscribed in the end which meant I didn't get a drive. :-( Still, the steak and pavlova was nice!

Of utmost importance for me was the very clear message that I got from members that they wanted to be able to use their credits for more of this type of event - combining speed driving, a bit of skills improvement, and socialising with other members.

Based on this success, for next year we will plan 6 e25 Track Club events (including 1 overseas one), and we will proceed with our track car debenture programme which means we will have a really cool top end track car of our own that members can experience at our Track Club events and even use for their own Arrive and Drive if sufficiently experienced.

Please get in touch if you are interested in the Debenture Track car scheme.

Thanks to Paul Williams for the above photo, more of which can be seen here

End of the recession

Sorry for the radio silence over the last week. No parties or hot news I'm afraid. We were all just superbusy with a level of sales enquiries that takes us back to LBL (Life before Lehman).

In London we already sold out our allocation of Flex50 memberships last month and now our Half memberships allocation is getting limited - so I've now decided to call the end of the recession.

Looking forward, this week is really busy, with a Ladies' night tomorrow, TrackDay on Wednesday and Open Evening on Thursday.

In the meantime, here's a funny picture - can you spot the faux-pas? It's a bit obvious so no prizes for guessing it I'm afraid.

F1 here we come!

I am over the moon to see that not one, but two of the organisations that I have been developing close ties with over the last year have been successful in getting a slot in next year's F1 series.

First of all, the return of Lotus to F1 is great for all us Brits to be able to get behind; but since my plans for an e25 track and race series are being prepared within the Lotus racing pedigree, I am sure that all sorts of F1 collaboration opportunities will present.

A less obvious connection is with Manor GP some of whose Directors are also owners of our sister club Vitesse based in Newcastle.

Obviously it's very early days, but the opportunity to use e25's network of branches for promotions and roadshows for the various sponsors and get some VIP access for members for GPs and associated events is very exciting. I'd love to have an e25 sticker on a driver's helmet and pit lane passes for any members attending the races.

Hybrids for Beginners

On Monday night I was at a Fisker Presentation evening. Aside from meeting the man himself (designer of the DB9 amongst others), I was given an understanding of the engineering wizardry behind this car - solar panels, one speed gearbox and a haptic touchscreen display unit!?

Personally I think its the most beautiful 4-door car ever and I will definitely get one for myself AND one for the company but its worth explaining why this hybrid carries the most important powertrain innovation in over a decade.

All hybrids as we know them currently are petrol-hybrids. Ie the main source of power is the petrol engine. The battery only kicks in at extremely low power ranges to provide some zero emission mobility - useful for parking and crawling in traffic; otherwise its principally a petrol car. And of course the source of the energy for charging the batteries is petrol anyway - so it's only a mild improvement on a standard petrol car. Of course some energy is recovered during braking which also improves efficiency.

The Fisker is what is sometimes called an electric-hybrid. In this case the main powertrain is an electric motor and the car is always powered by electricity from the batteries. The magic on this type of car is that the petrol engine is only ever used to generate electricity to charge the batteries. Of course this means you don't need a very large petrol engine, and also it can operate within its optimal efficiency range at all times. Unlike a petrol-hybrid, it means that if you charge the car at least every 50 miles - sufficient for most people's daily commute - you need never use petrol at all. [Yes I appreciate the argument that the electricity has to come from somewhere and that today that is mostly fossil fuels, but at least you have a solution to the dependency on oil for mobility and then the engineers can concentrate on developing more low/zero emission energy sources for electricity.]

Anyway, I think it is a step in the right direction and I will be giving this company whatever support I can. Expect to see this car at e25 in 2010 and do let me know if you fancy buying one and putting it on the Vehicle Owner's Programme, I could probably get you a special deal.

Merci Murcie!

The Leeds branch launch event was an unmitigated success with several new members signing up on the day.

In spite of our best efforts to ensure that e25's latest and greatest was on display (California, DBS, etc) and despite being 5 years old, this bright orange Murcielago brought in by a guest was the highlight of the show! Of course, it's the scissor doors...

Dean very kindly allowed us to photograph it under the e25 banner but we can't really use it in our proper marketing unless we have it on the fleet. Of course being Orange with Black interior it is too good to resist and after several bottles of wine over dinner, Paul and I had convinced ourselves that we should buy it off him, if only for marketing purposes.

I haven't dared ask Paul since he has sobered up whether he is still interested in buying it because I fear the answer might be a yes...

More gossip about the launch event here on Pistonheads

4 wheels of a different kind

You can tell school term has started again by the huge jump in traffic on the road. I cannot really understand why kids need to be driven half a mile to school.

At least in my house we are doing our bit for the environment; after learning to pedal this Summer, Yasmin now cycles to school! What a proud father!

Leeds Branch Launch Event

This Saturday is the Launch Party for the new e25 Leeds branch.

Although the Leeds branch officially opened on August 1, the party was pushed out to September to allow for holidaymakers to get back. Its a free party and should be really cool - Paul tells me that there will be a few celebrities there but won't divulge any names. Click here for more details of how to get on the invitation list.

The photo shows me with the proprietors Paul and Karen Brown - and yes, Karen does not have any arms in real life either!

Road Rally - video

This is now up on the e25 website - hope you like it.

Would love to hear your thoughts, either here or on Pistonheads?

The next event we are doing is a track day at Silverstone on September 30th. If there is a lot of interest in this, we will plan more for next year.

15 minutes of fame

Well my last post seems to have caused a bit of a stir on Pistonheads - how ironic since one of the reasons I started my blog is because the BlogPolice at PH kept censoring my contributions to the site.

Lousy Lamborghini

For commerically sensitive reasons I have had to button my lip on this topic all Summer, but I am now free to vent to my heart's content...



Lamborghini Sucks!



These cars are not fit for purpose and a total health hazard. My sorry story with Lambo starts right at the beginning of the year when we took delivery of our shiny new LP560-4. I bought this car in the hope that a bit of Audi engineering might have made its way into it and we could look forward to a more reliable Lambo for once....wow, I could not have been more wrong.



In the first 12 weeks we had the car it broke down 8 times, and spent 7 weeks in the repair shop being fixed. About 40 customers were let down by cancelled bookings as a result of failures on the car, and resulted in over £30,000 of lost income too! In the end, Lambo gave us a brand new car, which was nice of them but did not fill me with confidence. This has been a much better car from a reliability point of view. But...



no sooner had this episode past than our Gallardo Spyder had a fire in the engine bay while a member was pulling up in a car park. Initially I thought this was just a freak incident but over time my attention has been drawn to websites such as YouTube which are littered with stories of Lamborghini's on fire, and by July another incident in Peterborough made it onto Top Gear.



And then, to add insult to injury, when a member crashed the LP560-4 in June, Lamborghini took a total of 9 weeks to get all the spare parts to the repair shop - in one instance taking 3 attempts to deliver a bonnet without a dent in it.

So in summary, we have been without our 2 Lamborghinis for most of the Summer. Obviously it has impacted our vehicle availability which has upset a ton of members, and has caused us a massive loss of income just at a time when we can least afford it....

Needless to say, these cars are just not fit for purpose! I know they are absolutely the most gorrrrgeous things on the road, and the new LP560 is without doubt the best drive ever...but if these cars cannot be relied upon to work when you actually need them to get you anywhere when you need it, what's the point? For my part, I certainly won't be bringing more Lamborghini's on to the fleet anytime soon and when there are so many great cars now coming out from Maserati, Aston Martin, Ferrari and even Nissan and Jaguar, who needs them!

E25 goes trackside!

For some time now I have been checking out options for an e25 –Racing project; it’s all part of my campaign to extend the range of performance motoring services to members.

Today I was at a “well-known sports car manufacturer in Norwich” finalising the details of a track and racing schedule for next year. We outlined a sponsorship programme which includes a support package to run their hottest track car. Members will be able to use credits for track days and even buy slots in an 11 stage race series. Instruction will also be provided to help members work their way up to the qualifications required for racing.

An official announcement will be released on the ecurie25 website once a deal is finalised.

Quiz winners:
I was pleasantly surprised by how many people responded to my quiz – more people must read my blog than I thought!
Congratulations to Justin and Paul on being the first to submit the right answers (although neither of them know a Spyder from a Spider!). Justin is the official winner but I can’t let Paul down since he is also a member so a bottle of Louis Roederer is on its way to each of them.

Nurburgring Road Rally

Our inaugural road rally was a phenomenal success and the best driving experience of my life.

I am not even going to begin to attempt to explain how great this trip was...you'll have to wait for the vidclip to be posted on the e25 website.

But until then, I'll offer a bottle of champagne for anyone who can name all 8 supercars that were on the tour - as seen in this picture outside the hotel we were staying in).Offer excludes e25 staff and participants on the rally.

Time for some Hi Revs!

48 hours to go before the Nurburgring Road Rally - I am so excited...

Believe it or not, despite having the car for a year now, the furthest I've ever got to drive the DBS has been round the block to the petrol station - I can't wait!!

The end is nigh....

I came in this morning and to my surprise the California was not booked out for the day, so I didn't hesitate to jump in and take it for a spin....

I'm not good at car reviews so before I start, I'll state that a proper review of the car has been posted on Pistonheads by one of our members.

For my money, this is the perfect car - convertible when you want one, hard top when you don't. Unlike a Lambo it has enough boot space to actually take your luggage with you when you go on a weekend break. Unlike the Astons, it can actually carry the kids if driving them down to the coast is the only way you can find an excuse to go for a spin. Unlike other Ferraris, it won't wake up all the neighbours when you drive home late at night - unless you want to! And unlike the Bentley, it is actually a sports car not just a Sherman Tank with a massive engine in it - the gear change is unbelievable!



For all intents and purposes, its a Mercedes in disguise...perfect for people like me who would never be seen dead in a Mercedes but secretly admire the engineering on their cars.



The problem for me is, this car spells the end of car clubs as we know them! In 4 years time you'll be able to buy this car for £75k and if the car turns out to be as reliable and maintenance free as it is reputed to be, it will be a great buy for anyone and there won't be any need to join a club anymore.



But wait a minute, a Ferrari that does not need a clutch replacement for 20,000 miles? Isn't that called a Fiat?

Holiday snaps

I'm back! Thanks to Dan for keeping things going in my absence.

Well, given the length of time I've been on holiday, it is only appropriate that I stick up at least 1 holiday picture - you can never start too early with these kids, here's Yasmin teaching Lara how to drive!

Anyway, back to the smoke!

The morning after the night before

These days it's not that often that I wake with what seems like a fuzzy layer of vaseline on my eyeballs and a red hot poker jammed in my brain, this morning was one of those rare occasions however.

Last night was our California Launch Party. 400 guests, free booze and canapes, Tall Paul on the decks, £1,500 of competition prizes, and most importantly, 3 great new cars being welcomed onto the fleet.

Everyone knew about the California, some knew about the Maserati GranTurismo S, but only I and a couple of others knew about the brilliant Lotus Evora. We've done a very nice deal with Lotus to get us one of the first on the road, and our relationship with them may well extend to track based fun in the not too distant future. Watch this space.



So, three new cars on the fleet, two of which won't be available at any other club for at least a few months. ecurie25 can honestly lay claim to being the biggest and longest established supercar club in the UK. Others claim that title....but they're massaging the truth and we don't want to waste our time correcting them.

Instead we'll invest our time organising more surprises. Getting our members the cars they want before they even know they want them, and running events like the Nurburgring Road Rally is what really sets us apart from lesser clubs.

Thanks to everyone that helped to make it a great night.

Excuses excuses...

You may have noticed that this blog entry has taken a while to appear, I know the Boss has certainly made a note! So, what better way to fill this space than with my excuses for this tardy performance? What on earth has been filling my time for the past two or three weeks?

Well, let’s start with our new branch in Leeds, there have been a million and one things to organise, from business cards and flag poles, to branded clothing and building signage. Then there’s the staff training and ongoing phone support….and the IT support….and and and. However, everything seems to have happened in time for their first marketing event at York Racecourse this weekend. There’s plenty more to do though.

And then we have the Fellali* saga. If you haven’t heard about our Fellali Launch Party on the 30th then you aren’t on our mailing list….and that’s no good so click here to put it right and get an invite to the party. Anyway, Fellali….make lovely cars….but they don’t do any good for our blood pressure when they’re new, here’s why.

Imagine having waited years for the delivery of your brand spanking new Fellali, your boyhood dream. The big day is within touching distance, and you can almost smell the immaculate new leather, the dream is almost reality and its fair to say you’re practically wetting yourself with excitement. The day before the due date you get a call to say “it’s delayed at the factory, it’ll be another week". Next week it get’s delayed again because “it just missed the last delivery truck, the next one’s in a week”, and so on.

You get the idea, the highs and lows can really mess you up! Imagine that trauma times 150 and then you can start to understand what it’s like for us when we're feeling the same thing on behalf of every one of our members. Throw in a very big party that’s already organised and paid for, and the fact that your star guest might be delayed one too many times, and all of a sudden you suspect you might need to change your boxers. As you can imagine, that took a fair bit of time to deal with, but it’s looking like its all coming together now. Roll on the 30th, it will go down in e25 history one way or another.

Next we have the early planning stages of the 4th edition of e25 Magazine. This required the creation of themes for the features, ideal car combinations, and of course, captivating feature titles. Dreaming up captivating feature titles is not something that can be done on cue, we creative types need to find ‘the zone’. Yes that’s right, my creative genius needs time to find its stride Boss.

Then I needed to arrange transport for our car rotation with the Northern Ireland branch. Dates to work out, quotes to get, order to place, loading and unloading to arrange, and payment to organise.

In the background I am bug testing the new version of our backend system, it looks after everything to do with the booking of cars, scheduling of servicing, member accounts and so on. It has just become infinitely more complex with the addition of multiple branches into the mix. There’s quite a few buttons to click there Boss, it’s taken me a while.

Finally, it looks like I’ve managed to knock together a very nice deal with a well known sports car manufacturer. I can’t say too much right now but all will be revealed very soon hopefully…

Obviously everything above is on top of all the usual day to day issues and emails I have to deal with.....and then I had to write a blog! There’s never a dull day although you'll notice there isn't any mention of having driven the very things that drew me to this job. Note to friends, my job really isn't like you imagine!

So in summary, forgive my tardiness Boss, the next blog entry will be along soon.


*Any likeness of the word Fellali to any real car manufacturer is purely coincidental.

Kid in a Candy shop

Well, I have been having a lot of fun in the last couple of weeks with a combined budget of over £400,000 to spend on cars.

My other business, TradingPartners is all about purchasing negotiation (leveraging your buying power to get really good prices) and I am delighted to have had the chance to dust down the old sourcing skills this month. With Paul Brown (owner of the new e25 Leeds) looking to buy a brand new F430 Spider for his fleet, and myself looking to secure a new California with an early build date, we had a great time waving a £300,000+ cheque at various Ferrari dealers. Needless to say, in this market, he got a cracking deal - his F430 won't cost him in depreciation at all in its first year, and I secured a California with delivery for...week after next!!!!!! I have not got a picture of the California since it has only just been made.

However, I have got a picture of my other purchase: A new Maserati GranTurismo S - which arrives next week.

With my Summer spending spree finished, Ilke wants her turn so now we are off to Turkey for our holidays. But in case you were wondering how you will get through the Summer without my soundbites, I am delighted to introduce my first Guest-Blogger, Dan Smith - e25's National Franchise Director...

New Branch in Leeds

It's official. e25 Leeds will open on August 1st.

Located about 10 minutes from Leeds city centre, and 5 minutes from Wakefield, ecurie25's latest branch will be our flagship operation for the North of England.

The branch will commence operations with 6 cars including the Aston Martin DBS, Ferrari 430 Spider, Jaguar XKR Coupe, Audi R8, Maserati Quattroporte and Porsche Cayman.

The first 20 members will be offered free delivery and collection in their first year.

With 4 branches in the network we now have the basic structure of a nationwide network - cool!

It's not all champagne

Just in case you were thinking my life is all champagne and fast cars, Joss took this picture of me mopping up a roof leak after the last torrential rainfall - of course we just had another one last night so I am dreading having to do it again today.

Bankers are Wankers!

It's my blog and I can swear if I want to!

I said I would post about the credit crunch a while ago, and I have picked today to get on my soap box because e25 is featured on the BBC's working lunch homepage because of our new financing deals using private lenders.

If you operate an inefficient business model, the internet will catch up with you eventually and now it's the turn of the banks. Offering savers only 1-2% interest whilst charging borrowers 7%+ is daylight robbery and yet, even then, banks are not prepared to lend - not even established businesses with strong track records.

Since our incompetent government are unable to do anything about it, even when they own these companies, the banks are now going to face the much tougher regulation of entrepreneurship.

There are now already several companies like First Funding and Zopa that use a website as a marketplace for lenders and borrowers to search out each other and there is no doubt that this will gain more ground over time.

Those banks that don't go bust are going to disentegrate as more and more people switch to internet intermediaries and quite frankly their disappearance will have me smiling all the way to the 'coffee shop' that most banks will be turned into!

Lesson for the day: Innovate or die!

Tesla Launch Party

Last week was a tough one for socialising - in addition to the Indian Summer at the Dorchester I also attended the launch party for the Tesla, electric car at their swanky new showroom in Cheval Place - yes, that's right, former home of Segrave Club. (Let's hope they don't suffer the same fate of their investors pulling the plug on them.)

By now I think most people have seen this car at various shows all over the place so it was mainly an excuse for a few glasses of bubbly.

At £98k for a car with a range of only 200 miles, I cannot see a market for this car at all - except perhaps for the first 50 as 'collector's items'. On the other hand, I think it is a must have for a supercar club - it is such a novel car that everyone will want to try it out so I was going there to buy one of the early release cars for this Summer. To my surprise they announced that they will be launching a right-hand drive version in 2010 - so I kept my money in my pocket (so to speak) and will talk to them at the end of the year.

The guy with his hands up in the picture is CEO Elon Musk.

Indian Summer

e25 was one of the sponsors of the Indian Summer Charity Event at the Dorchester last night so Ilke 'threw on' a sari and we popped down to Park Lane in the 'Maser' for a night of champagne and spice.

It was totally cool being able to arrive there in style but then leave the car at the Quadriga parking lot just across the road to be collected in the morning. I don't think many of our members know about this free parking facility.

Hollywood beckons

In the past week I have twice been involved with TV...



Last week I was on Luxe TV explaining the logic of supercar club membership to a completely new audience in the Middle East and across Asia - enquiries went crazy.



This week I was filming with BBC2 Working Lunch extolling the virtues of my latest favourite business First Funding which allows private individuals to lend directly to businesses instead of going through banks - I will do a separate post on this topic soon because the implications of this trend are enormous! It will go on air on July 6th, 1230 BBC2.

MotorExpo

I chose the first day of the tube strike to visit MotorExpo in Canary Wharf. We decided not to exhibit this year but I thought I would check it out to see if we made a good decision or not and it was definitely not worth the 2.5 hours spent in the car both on the way there and back.



I had a good chat with Mark and Lizzi from the Spyder club about a potential collaboration to offer superbikes to our members - the truth is I have absolutely no clue how much interest there would be in it. Any e25 members out there reading this, please let me know if you would be interested in superbikes on the fleet.



The highlight of the show was the new Range Rover - the interior trim is totally gorgeous and the front screen really does allow the passenger to watch telly at the same time the driver is using the SatNav - it blows your mind! Note to self: Must talk to my friends at JLR about getting a special deal on one of these.

Bom dia!

I have just spent the last 2 days with a party from Portugal who are very interested in opening our first international branch. Their plan is to serve the affluent Lisbon/Cascais market as well as keep some of the cars in Faro for the wealthy Brits staying at the luxury hotspots like Quinta do Lago; obviously the e25 brand is well established amongst the latter crowd.

It would be totally cool if they also offered boats.

But the best bit was they thought we should change our name to CR25 in order to have wider appeal in the portuguese market - something to do with a famous footballer apparently.

Interesting facts that I learnt about Portugal:
Nando's is not Portuguese - it was invented in South Africa (by a portuguese guy) - the portuguese do not eat hot food (unless they are going out for a curry!)
Afternoon tea was introduced to the UK by a portuguese queen who was apparently sent over here to marry a king. He did not like her and sent her home but obviously hung on to the tea concept.

Adeus

Scooterman

Last week my wife and I went to our favourite romantic London restaurant (Oxo Tower) to celebrate my birthday (still under 40, just!) and for the first time ever I thought I would try out this Scooterman concept.

This meant we had the pleasure of travelling there and back in the Maserati Quattroporte which was a nice alternative to smelly cabs. It cost £49 which is cheaper than taking smart cabs each way, and about the same as taking smelly cabs each way.

The poor 'scooterman' got a thorough grilling from me on the way home as I tried to de-construct the business model and see if it made sense for us to offer a similar service to our members.

In summary, given that he only does 2 drives a night (since everyone wants to go home around the same time!) carting a scooter around just did not make sense - it would have been cheaper, less hassle and almost as quick to get to the second job by tube!

Of course without the scooter, the cost of the job could be a lot lower, and as far as e25 is concerned would increase the number of cars with which we could offer this service since boot space would not be an issue. Of course where the second passenger would sit would still be a challenge in the real supercars. Also, we could take the car back to base, saving the member from having to return it the next morning. I think I'll call it Supercarman (Superman for short?)and run a free trial next Winter as a tactic to encourage more people booking cars out mid-week.

Britney's Back

Ilke and I were guests of Credit Suisse last night for the Britney "Lip-Sync" concert - although to complain about her lack of singing is kind of missing the point - this was more of a modern circus show than a concert which, to be fair, is exactly how it had been billed "The Circus - starring Britney Spears"...and she is a great dancer.

CS have lots of clients with strong motorsport interests and we are trying to figure out ways in which we can collaborate to combine our motoring enthusiasm (and budgets) to provide bigger and better motoring events for both our members and their clients. But don't worry about all that...enjoy the pictures.

A nationwide club!

Congratulations to Jayce Doughty - our first member in London to have used his credits at another branch.

Of course the big prize of having a network of e25 branches is that members for all clubs can pop over to other locations on business or pleasure and drive different cars in new locations and Jayce did just this. Here's what he had to say on the experience:

"To be honest I didn't know what to expect heading out to Northern Ireland for a couple of days exploring the area. I was pleasantly surprised that within 5 minutes of landing I had a call from the é25 Belfast boys to tell me they were outside with the car.

I found everyone at é25 Belfast to be as helpful and friendly as all the other é25 personnel I have met, and they gave me some great pointers as to the places I really should see….and the roads I should drive. Even with the fact that they were having a very busy weekend doing some PR at the NW200 Motorbike Racing, they still managed to be there to collect the car from the airport even though I was flying out on the Sunday.

Great service with a smile, I look forward to making use of more of the planned é25 bases in the future."

As we get more e25 clubs within the group, the advantage of being an e25 member will put all other clubs in the shade - here's to global domination!!

Monaco Part 2 - not the racing

It's taken me 5 days to recover from our busman's holiday of almost stag-party like proportions. It all started on Thursday when we called all the members with weekend bookings and told them they could have their car for free on Thursday, so we could close the office early and run off to Monaco!

Of course Monaco is not just about F1...it's also about losing a lot of money!

We got in on Thursday night and spent Friday on the golf course (paying 100 euros to lose another 30 euros of golf balls). Friday night was spent in the casino losing even more money.

On Saturday night we were supposed to be on Eddie Jordan's boat party but he cancelled it so we were a bit stranded. Jon, Simon and I wandered around soaking up the atmosphere and were about to get the last train back to Nice until we suddenly got lucky and managed to gate-crash the Red-Bull party. Oh, if only we had got the train...you see I don't even like Red Bull so all I drank was neat vodka all night...needless to say by 4am I was back to my old college habits - doing the "chilli kebab" and playing poker with my house mates (losing even more money).

By Sunday night I was pooped and decided to take it easy soaking up the display of exotica (all varieties), around Casino Square. I'm definitely getting old.

Monaco Part 1 - the racing

This blog is in two parts - this one is about our hospitality suite for the F1 racing and the next one is about everything else around it!

The apartment we had was hovering right over the uphill straight towards casino square - with views across the swimming pool complex and even some of the pits (if you had binoculars).

You could even have poured a pint of beer over Hamilton as he walked past us on the way back to the pits on qualifying day - I didn't, but I admit the thought did cross my mind!

Actually I'm quite proud of this photo because the cars come up so fast, with the slow shutter speeds on these new digital cameras you have to photograph the car before it is in the picture in order to catch one - this is my best from about 50 attempts!

Based on the success of this inaugural trip, I think we'll try and get 40 people to come next year which should mean we can have our own e25 boat at the entrance to the swimming pool complex and host our own parties in the evenings.

Next franchise - sneaky peaks!

I was in Leeds today meeting with the owners of a car rental business. They have depots in 4 locations around the Yorkshire area and seem very interested in an e25 franchise for the Yorkshire area.

It makes a lot of sense - they are experienced in handling cars and have a demonstrable track record in growing automotive businesses; so with a bit of luck and negotiation we may well have a North of England presence before the end of the Summer.

Tomorrow I'm off to Monaco to host a party of 25 e25 members at our private terrace for the Monaco Grand Prix - I don't really want to go but someone has to look after them!!!

[photos and gorey details next week, ciao!]

NI launch party

Our NI franchise held their launch party last weekend.

Despite the incessant rain, there was a decent turnout and they even signed up 4 people on the day - I didn't think that sort of thing happened anymore.

They are now just shy of 20 members within 3 weeks of launching. Which is pretty amazing considering their business plan was to reach 35 members by the end of the first year.

Nice picture of me with my phone welded to my ear as usual!

The New XKR has arrived

The new Jag XKR arrived yesterday...

I must admit I was originally quite sceptical about whether a Jag can 'cut it' in a supercar club but the feedback from members at the reLocation party in February was positive enough to encourage me to get the car into the fleet.

It will be interesting to see what members think about how it drives - for my part I am quite surprised by how much I like it; but I'll leave the auto reviews to the petrolheads.

The arrival of this car is a landmark for the club because it is the first time the club has sourced a car direct from a manufacturer and hopefully signals an era of closer relationship with OEMs.

A big round of applause to my old friend Gary Knight who was part of the team that designed this car and made the deal happen.