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.